Big 5 Sporting Goods Corporation saw net sales slip 1.0% to $232.1 million for the fourth quarter from $234.5 million for the same quarter last year. Same store sales declined 4.7% for the fourth quarter. The company reported that sales were impacted by a decline in customer traffic year-over-year, as macro-economic issues continued to affect the consumer sales environment. Additionally, sales results were impacted by a “significant deterioration in the performance of the roller shoe product category over the prior year,” which accounted for approximately 45% of the same store sales decline.


For the fiscal 2007 full year, net sales increased 2.5% to $898.3 million from $876.8 million for the fiscal 2006 full year. Same store sales declined 1.0% for the full year 2007.


For the fiscal 2007 fourth quarter, the company now expects to realize earnings per diluted share in the range of 25 cents to 28 cents. The new Q4 range is down from guidance given at the end of the third quarter for earnings between 36 cents and 46 cents per diluted share. For the fiscal 2007 full year, the company now expects to realize earnings per diluted share in the range of $1.22 to $1.25, down from early guidance of $1.33 to $1.43 per share.


“We are disappointed to report fourth quarter sales below our plan,” said Steven G. Miller, the company’s chairman, president and CEO. “Although we had been able to manage through the difficult business conditions in many of our markets during the first nine months of the year, the consumer environment during the holiday selling season was even more challenging than we had anticipated. We continue to examine and augment areas of our business that we can influence, including enhancing our merchandise offering and promotional plan, as well as controlling expenses. We remain confident in the effectiveness of our overall business model that produced 45 consecutive quarters of positive same store sales growth through the first quarter of 2007, and we look forward to stronger results as the consumer spending environment improves.”