- Target has now rolled out the service to 55 stores, including all of New York’s five boroughs as well as stores in Boston, Chicago, the District of Columbia and San Francisco, according to Mulligan.
- Target forecasts a low single-digit gain in same-store sales for the full 2018 fiscal year, with GAAP and adjusted EPS ranging from $5.15 to $5.45.
Execs say strategies for stores, e-commerce nurturing growth.
An uptick in store traffic and robust digital sales helped raise first-quarter revenue at Target Corp., but the retailer fell short of Wall Street’s earnings projections.
For the fiscal 2018 quarter ended May 5, Target totaled sales of $16.56 billion, up 3.5percent from nearly $16 billion a year earlier. Same-store sales rose 3percent, fueled by a 3.7percent gain in traffic which Target called its strongest quarterly performance in more than 10 years and partially offset by a 0.6percent dip in the average ticket.
Digital sales climbed 28% in the first quarter, building on 21percent growth in the prior-year period, Target reported. The online channel accounted for 5.2percent of sales in the quarter, up from 4.2percent a year ago. Also, digital’s contribution to comparable-store sales edged up to 1.1percent from 0.8percent, while stores boosted their comp-sales contribution to 1.9percent from a negative 2.2percent in the year-ago period.
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“We are really pleased with the performance of our business in the first quarter, which demonstrates the resilience of our multi-category portfolio. Our traffic growth, up 3.7percent, is the strongest we’ve seen in more than 10 years, reflecting healthy increases in both our stores and digital channels,” Chairman and CEO Brian Cornell said Wednesday in a conference call with analysts.
“Comparable sales growth of 3percent was consistent with our guidance driven by strength in home, household essentials, and food and beverage,” he said. “This demonstrates the benefits of maintaining a balanced portfolio as strength of these categories offset the impact of a late spring on our temperature-sensitive categories, which have accelerated dramatically as we entered the second quarter.”
Date: May 23, 2018