Pier 1 Optimistic About 3Q Trends

November 8, 2010  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in Furniture Retailing on November 9, 2010 Specialty retailer Pier 1 Imports, Inc. (NYSE: PIR) announced Monday that it continues to see positive business trends with increased traffic, conversion and average ticket for the first two months of the third quarter.

The company included the announcement in a release about a store event for its shareholders and analysts at its Fifth Avenue store in New York this morning.

In the business update, the company said it believes the same-store sales increase for the third quarter ending Nov. 27 will be in a range of 8 percent to 10 percent compared to last year's third quarter same-store sales increase of 13.7 percent. Merchandise margins for the third quarter are expected to be about 58 percent of sales compared to last year's third quarter merchandise margins of 56.6 percent of sales.

"We are pleased with our strong September and October sales results which are on top of strong sales last year," said Alex W. Smith, president and chief executive officer. "We believe this momentum will continue throughout the holiday selling season. As always, we are very diligent with controlling costs. However, to capitalize on and maintain the strong traffic and seek to maximize sales, we have added approximately $3 million of additional store payroll and marketing in the third quarter. We are upbeat on the start of our holiday selling season and look forward to the couple of months that lie ahead."

Pier 1 will announce fiscal 2011 third quarter sales Dec. 2.