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Retailers' sales flat to down in January

By Furniture Today Staff -- Furniture Today, February 6, 2005

Fort Worth, Texas — Specialty retailers Pier 1 Imports and The Bombay Company reported declining sales in the four weeks ended Jan. 29, coupled with sagging or flat same-store sales.

Full-line chain Havertys said its total sales rose 0.9% in the month of January, while same-store sales decreased by 2.5%.

Pier 1's January sales of $118.9 million were down 5.1% and same-store sales fell 10.4%.

Pier 1's year-to-date sales for the 11 months ended Jan. 29 grew 2.4% to $1.8 billion from $1.7 billion in the same period last year.

Pier 1 Chairman and CEO Marvin Girouard estimated that severe weather across the country hurt January same-store sales by 2% to 3%, and said average ticket sales were down.

"Although sales in January were disappointing, we believe that significant progress continues to be made at the store level," said Girouard. "We executed aggressive clearance efforts in January that resulted in a more balanced and cleaner inventory position in all product categories."

He added that based on results so far this quarter, earnings are projected to be at the low end of the previously announced range of 31 cents to 38 cents per share.

Bombay posted flat same-store sales for January, and total revenues of $37.3 million were off 2% from a year earlier. month.

Bombay's total revenues for the year were down 4% to $575.3 million from $596.4 million in the prior fiscal year, and same-store sales fell 12%.

Bombay Chairman and CEO James Carreker said, "We were pleased with January's sales results and the effectiveness of our inventory clearance activities. Same-store sales were strongest earlier in the month but lost ground due to the weather conditions of the last two weekends."

At Havertys, President and CEO Clarence Smith said weather hampered sales.

"January deliveries to our customers were cut short over the last weekend of the month by an ice storm impacting our Georgia and Eastern stores," Smith said. "Calendar differences also took a delivery day out of the month compared to January 2004.... We believe comps would have been positive by a low to mid single-digit percentage without these factors."

Later this month, Havertys will open its 118th store, in the suburbs of Washington.

Retailers report January sales
Dollar amounts in millions
Company	Sales	Change	Same-store change
1. For the four weeks ended Jan 29 Source: Retailers
Pier 1 Imports¹	$118.9	-5.1%	-10.4%
Havertys	$66.2	0.9%	-2.5%
The Bombay Company¹	$37.3	-2.0%	0.0%

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Retailers note mixed January results

Feb 4, 2005

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