Gottschalks Comps Slip 3.6% in March

Gottschalks Inc. announced that same store sales for the month of March 2006 decreased 3.6% compared to the prior year. Total sales for the month decreased 3.3% to $56.0 million from $57.9 million in March 2005. On a year-to-date basis, same store sales decreased 0.9% from the same period of the prior year. Total sales for the year-to-date period were $100.3 million, essentially even with $100.7 million for the same period of fiscal 2005.

Jim Famalette, president and chief executive officer of Gottschalks, said, “Our sales performance for the month primarily reflects the impact of the Easter holiday occurring three weeks later this year, moving from March to April. Our strongest categories continued to perform well in March with our best merchandise areas being shoes, cosmetics, house wares and furniture/mattresses. We continue to emphasize inventory management and closed the month with our comp store inventory down 3.6% from the same period last year. Though we have not had typical spring weather on the West Coast this year, we believe our results for the combined March and April period will better reflect our expected spring sales.”

Sales results are summarized as follows:

                                                                   Same Store
                            April 1,      April 2,      Total %      Sales %
                             2006          2005        Decrease     Decrease
                                 (in 000's)

    Sales, 5 Weeks Ended    $55,965       $57,883        3.3%          3.6%

    Sales, 9 Weeks Ended   $100,254      $100,683        0.4%          0.9%