The Bon-Ton Stores, Inc. total sales for the month of November increased 7.1% to $393.1 million compared to $367.0 million for the prior year period. Bon-Ton and Carson’s combined comparable store sales for the four weeks increased 8.6%. Carson’s comparable store sales increased 7.9% and Bon-Ton comparable store sales increased 9.9% compared to the prior year period.

Year-to-date total sales increased 5.7% to $2,620.1 million compared to $2,479.7 million for the same period last year. For informational purposes only, year-to-date Carson’s comparable store sales increased 0.2%. Year-to-date Bon-Ton comparable store sales decreased 5.1%.

Tony Buccina, Vice Chairman and President – Merchandising, commented, “November sales were positively impacted by the onset of cold weather and the calendar shift that moved the week after Thanksgiving into the retail calendar month of November this year from December last year. We were pleased with our overall results, which included record-breaking sales for our two biggest volume days of the year. Cold weather-related merchandise categories, which experienced double-digit decreases in September and October, generated double-digit sales increases during the month and were the best performing categories. In addition to cold weather merchandise, our best performing merchandise categories were children’s, petite and large size sportswear, shoes, men’s, intimate and home, which was driven by tech items. Dresses and juniors were our weakest performing categories. We experienced some sales loss from a snow storm on the last Saturday of the month, which negatively impacted sales results by an estimated 1.5% to 2.0%. We continue to flow fresh merchandise into our assortments where appropriate and our promotional efforts will be aggressive throughout the remainder of the holiday shopping period.”

Due to the calendar shift, which benefited November sales and is expected to negatively impact December sales, the Company anticipates that comparable store sales for the combined months of November and December will be flat to slightly negative.