Costco Sales Up in Q3 The wholesale warehouse club retailer saw another quarter of strong earnings, revenue, and same-store sales that beat expectations. Costco saw their net sales rise 9.1% with foot traffic growing by 5.5%, e-commerce sales grew the most by a significant 20.7%. The company reiterated that they are maintaining their plans to open 12 new clubs in their fiscal year, 9 within the U.S. (Chain Store Age 5/31) [Read]

Gap Sees Growth Across all Brands For the first time in years, Gap Inc. reported that they saw same-store sales gains across all four of their banners. Between Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic, and Athleta, the company saw net sales rise by 3% and net income gains as Gap is increasing their outlook for the rest of their fiscal year. Notably, the retailer ended the quarter with inventory down 15% compared to the year-ago period. (Chain Store Age 5/31) [Read]

Nordstrom Rack Continues to Shine While the department store banner saw net sales rise 5.1% respectively, the off-price Rack banner continues to outperform as they saw net sales gain 13.9% for the same period. Nordstrom still delivers roughly double the business that Rack does, but they are starting to pull back a bit while Rack continues to seek expansion opportunities. There are currently 22 planned Rack locations to open by the end of this year. (Retail Dive 5/31) [Read]

Dollar General Upping Store Remodels Strong customer traffic growth and market share gains drove Dollar General to better-than-expected sales and profit in its first quarter. They reported a 6.1% gain in net sales and opened 197 stores, in the quarter while revising their new stores and remodels forecast for their fiscal year. Dollar General now plans to open 730 new stores, down from 800, and expects to remodel 1,620 stores, up from 1,500. (Chain Store Age 5/30) [Read]

Retailers Continue Suburban Push While online retail continues to gain popularity, retailers are still expanding their footprints as in-store shopping rebounds. A Dataplor report showed that between seven retailers there were 380+ store openings from 2020 to present day. Of the roughly 390 locations accounted for in the report, approximately 330 opened in smaller cities and suburban areas compared to nearly 60 in major cities. (Chain Store Age 6/4) [Read]

Dollar Tree Exploring Sale of Family Dollar After announcing in March that the company planned to close 950 Family Dollar locations, Dollar Tree is now reviewing their strategic alternatives for Family Dollar. Some options include spinning the business off or even a potential sale, which would come less than a decade after Dollar Tree acquired Family Dollar in 2015 for $8.5B. Dollar Tree continues to expand, recently acquiring 170 99 Cents Only leases across 4 states. (Chain Store Age 6/5) [Read]

Kohl’s Stock Plummets After Missed Earnings The company saw its stock drop over 20% following the news that Kohl’s posted a surprising loss per share, especially as Wall Street forecasted a slight profit. Sales trends started the year strong for Kohl’s but had weakened in the last five weeks of the quarter as customers held back on buying seasonal merchandise. Despite the slow quarter, Kohl’s is still seeing in-store Sephora shop success and will continue to open more as the year goes on. (CNBC 5/30) [Read]

Best Buy Sees Stock Gains Despite Slow Sales Although they missed Wall Street’s sales expectations, Best Buy stressed that profits were higher despite softer consumer demand for electronics. Net sales dropped in the quarter, but the company still saw net income grow slightly as they dealt with the aftermath of unusually high sales during the beginning years of Covid coming back down. Best Buy stated that they are expecting to close 10 to 15 stores this year, after closing 24 in 2023. (CNBC 5/30) [Read]

Big Lots Sales Fall in Q1 Big Lots reported a loss and underwhelming sales in the first quarter as customers remained frugal. The discounter reported a $206M net loss for the quarter, nearly the exact performance in the year-ago period. Net sales also decreased by 10.2% in the same period. Despite the recent challenges, Big Lots remains confident that they can grow their market share in the bargain and extreme bargain categories. (Chain Store Age 6/6) [Read]

Ramblewood Square Sells for $58.5M Publix added the 157,914-square-foot Publix and Ross Dress for Less anchored shopping center in Coral Springs to its South Florida portfolio for $58.5M. The seller, an Apollo Global Management affiliate, paid $21M for the 15-acre property back in 2019. (The Real Deal 5/23) [Read]

Market Square Sells for $23.4M An affiliate of Centro Corp. acquired the 118,583-square-foot portion of the Target shadow anchored shopping center for $23.4M from Nuveen Real Estate. The portion of the center purchased includes American Signature Furniture, Total Wine & More, and DSW as anchors and was fully leased at the time of sale. Cushman & Wakefield arranged the sale. (Shopping Center Business 6/10) [Read]

Global E-Commerce to Near $7 Trillion by 2028 Forrester is now predicting that e-commerce will explode in the next 4 years. Total global online retail sales, according to the forecast, will climb from $4.4 trillion in 2023 to $6.8 trillion by 2028. This would represent an 8.9% compound annual growth rate, with the U.S. accounting for roughly 28% of global online retail sales. (Chain Store Age 5/30) [Read]

U.S. Adds 272,000 Jobs in May Despite unemployment climbing to 4% for the first time since January 2022, the U.S. added far more jobs than expected in May, up from 165,000 in April and ahead of the 190,000 Dow Jones estimate. This report pushes back on the Fed’s likelihood of a rate cut as fears of a labor market slowdown ease. (CNBC 6/7) [Read]

Floridians Optimistic About Economy Consumer sentiment about the U.S. economy over the next five years dipped 2.2 points on the national level, but Floridians saw a 1.3-point jump. Despite inflation and interest rates still not coming down, Florida residents feel that financial situations as well as decision making on buying big-ticket items are stronger now than last year. Among the five factors included in the index, only one decreased for Floridians from the past month’s level. (Florida Realtors 4/30) [Read]