The Forzani Group Ltd. announced total retail system sales were up 7.5% over the prior year. Corporate comparable store sales decreased 5.3%, while franchise comparable store sales increased 9.7% for the Christmas selling season.
John Forzani, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer commenting on the performance stated, “We continue to increase sales and improve our bottom line results, however, the corporate comparable store sales during this period were below expectations. The shortfall in corporate comparable store sales reflects the unusually warm weather in Western Canada. The warm December contributed to a decrease of 11.0 % in corporate comparable store sales in Western Canada while in Eastern Canada corporate comparable store sales were positive with an increase of 2.5%.”
The soft comparable store sales in Western Canada were the result of weak performance in the ski, snowboard and outerwear categories, where combined sales on a comparable basis were down 22.0%. Excluding these categories, comparable sales in Western Canada were flat.
Recent corporate comparable store sales performance, specifically in the Boxing Day week and New Year’s Day week, were up 3.5% and 9.4%, respectively. As we experienced some cooler weather and snowfall, sales were positively impacted in the ski, snowboard and outerwear categories. Results for the franchise comparable store sales were very strong, up 13.1% for this two-week period.
In spite of weather challenges, management expects that closing inventories of winter merchandise will be below last year’s levels.
