Dollar General Q2 comp sales +3.7% (vs. 2.83% estimated) Press release
…Dollar General quarterly same-store sales top estimates at CNBC. “The company’s net income rose to $407.2 million, or $1.52 per share, from $294.8 million, or $1.08 per share, a year earlier.” Read more
Michael’s Q2 comp sales -0.4% Press release
Dollar Tree enterprise comp sales +1.8%: Dollar Tree banner +3.7% / Family Dollar banner flat at 0.0% Press release
Burlington Stores Q2 comp sales +2.9% Press release
At Home Group Q2 comp sales +2.8% / ended the quarter with 165 stores in 35 states Press release
…CVS SVP named CFO “Judd Nystrom, CFO, will be leaving At Home after a transition period. The Company is naming Jeffrey R. Knudson, currently Senior Vice President, Finance and Retail Controller at CVS Health, as his successor.” Press release
PVH Q2 revenue +13% “Revenue in the Calvin Klein business for the quarter increased 18% to $925 million…Revenue in the Tommy Hilfiger business for the quarter increased 15% to $1.0 billion.” Press release
Guess Inc. revenue +14% Press release
Inside Alibaba’s new kind of superstore: Robots, apps and overhead conveyor belts at CNBC. “Alibaba is rapidly expanding it’s new offline retail store, Hema, throughout China. The tech giant has grown its brick-and-mortar supermarket to 65 stores over the last year. And, although it may seem a shift from Alibaba’s tech roots, the store operates on cutting-edge innovations.” Read more/Video
CVS pulls powered Enfamil baby formula off shelves nationwide at ABC Action News. “The bag was in it like this, this particular sticker was not fully attached and when I opened it up this seal that wraps around was opened,” she said. “This smells like typical baking flour,” she said pointing to the container she says was tampered with.” Read more
At least 10 LGBT Pride posters have been defaced at Amazon’s headquarters over the past two months at CNBC. “The emails viewed by CNBC give a rare display of employee dissent over company policy at Amazon, whose workforce is generally known to be less vocal over such issues compared to those of other tech giants, like Facebook and Google.” Read more
BJ’s alleges Tyson, Perdue and other chicken producers overcharged consumers by over $3 billion per year over an eight-year period by Matt Bernardini at Law 360. “The chicken producers made a coordinated effort to raise prices and limit the number of chickens in the market by destroying breeder hens and chicken eggs and using a data company to identify competitors’ production statistics, which allowed the producers to coordinate their actions, according to the complaint” Subscription
BEZOS HITS BERNIE – Amazon, in a rare political response, calls Bernie Sanders’ claims of poor worker conditions ‘inaccurate and misleading’ at CNBC. “While Senator Sanders plays politics and makes misleading accusations, we are expending real money and effort upskilling people with our Career Choice program.” Read more
…BERNIE FIRES BACK – “Bottom line: the taxpayers of this country should not have to subsidize employees at a company owned by Mr. Bezos who is worth $155 billion. That is absurd.” TechCrunch
QuikTrip rap video has eclipsed 1 million views on Facebook alone by Matt Riedl at The Wichita Eagle. Video
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Amazon suspends reviews of US Open coverage after deluge of complaints by Mark Sweney at The Guardian. “Hopeless doesn’t describe it,” said another. “A complete embarrassment.” Bad reviews of Amazon’s separate highlights service reached such a level – 96% awarded just 1 or 2 star ratings – that no more reviews are being allowed to be posted about the service.” Read more
CHICAGO – Macy’s looks to sell Medinah Temple, move Bloomingdale’s store by Ryan Ori at Chicago Tribune. “A sale would end a notable chapter in Bloomingdale’s history. The redeveloped Moorish Revival building was Bloomingdale’s first stand-alone home furnishings store, a concept it previously tried only within shopping malls. It opened in 2003.” Tiered subs.
Publix picks Greensboro for $400M, 1,000 job distribution center by Luke Bollinger at Triad Business Journal. Read more
Nordstrom taps former Intuit CEO Brad Smith as chair at GeekWire. Read more
Former Woolworths CFO Lists A $35 Million Sydney House at Wall Street Journal. Subscription
Amazon beefs up its sports team with former ESPN exec Marie Donoghue at CNBC. “Donoghue spent 17 years with ESPN and was a key member in the success of its “30 For 30” documentary series and also earned a credit as executive vice president, global strategy and original content on the Oscar-winning documentary “O.J.: Made in America” in 2016.” Read more
Confusion over stores that look like Verizon Wireless stores by Christian Hetrick at Philly Inquirer. “The framework is similar to franchise agreements used by McDonalds or Starbucks. But unlike those chains, Verizon seems to exert less control over its third-party distributors, said Ed Rice, a Pittsburgh-based lawyer who represents clients running franchises.” Tiered subs.
Inside Sears Hometown Stores’ War With Its Local Entrepreneurs by Peter Carbonara at Forbes. “The problem with closing Hometown stores is that most are owned not by the company but by local franchisees…Some of these small entrepreneurs are not going quietly. Loudest is Heidi Wood, who until June owned and ran three Hometown stores in Oregon that she says together generated about $4 million in annual revenue.” Read more
Mattress Firm is ‘conspiring’ to sell bogus mattresses, Tempur-Pedic alleges in lawsuit by Nathan Bomey at USA Today. “The allegation marks an escalation of a bitter feud between the two companies after Mattress Firm last year ended its contract to sell Tempur-Sealy International mattresses in its more than 3,300 U.S. stores.” Read more
Russia’s Biggest Web Retailer Was Founded by a Language Teacher on Maternity Leave by Ilya Khrennikov at Bloomberg. “With the top five companies together controlling about a quarter of the market, “there’s clearly going to be consolidation,” Virin says. “We’re going to end up with just a few large players.” Tiered subs.
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Heard on the Call
Dick’s Sporting Goods Q2 Call Highlights
Ed Stack
Revenue grew 1% to approximately $2.18 billion.
Adjusted for the calendar shift due to the 53rd week, our consolidated same-store sales declined 4%.
As a percent of total net sales, the online business increased to approximately 11% compared to approximately 9% in the same period last year.
We also delivered double-digit growth in private brands and athletic apparel, excluding under Armour.
Sales were impacted by strategic decisions we made regarding the slow growth low margin hunt and electronics business, which accounted for nearly half of our comp decline.
We experienced significant declines in Under Armour sales as a result of their decision to expand distribution.
The operating margin of the hunt and electronics categories are approximately 1,700 basis points lower than the Company average.
Our private brand remains strong delivering double-digit growth again this quarter.
We continue to believe we can grow our private brand business to $2 billion over time.
In CALIA, we went after swim in a big way and are very pleased with the success of that product.
Our Team Sports license agreement with Adidas has significantly expanded into American football, which is exclusive to DICK’s.
Later this quarter, we will remove virtually all of the hunt products from 10 DICK’s stores.
We think golf is really in a good place
- We were at Taylor Made yesterday in California and looked at their product line and are really enthusiastic about that.
- I think there is at least another year of a good product cycle of great product and great marketing from the brands to come in and keep this going.
Lauren Hobart
BOPIS Locker test: we quickly expanded that test from three stores to 10.
We are now testing Curbside pickup in select stores as well.
ScoreCard loyalty program:
- Continuing the expansion of the gold tier through 2018.
- Over 22 million people, and that is the engine of all of the data that we use to drive personalized marketing.
- (Merging) those databases with the Team Sports HQ database.
- ScoreCard is a huge, huge engine of our marketing and our data knowledge of our customer.
Lee Belitsky
Transactions declined by 4.7%
Average ticket increased by 0.7%.
Our best performing categories included outdoor apparel and fitness equipment.
Athletic footwear and golf were also areas of relative strength for the quarter.
We are really very pleased with our apparel business for the quarter.
We need only recover about 60% of the loss in hunt and electronic sales to generate the same level for gross profit dollars.
We plan to open a smaller regional eCommerce fulfillment center for the Western region of the U.S. late in 2019.
Our eCommerce business comped up 12% in the quarter or 31% on a two-year stack.
We are now expecting full year comp sales to decline by 3% to 4% compared to our previous guidance of flat to low negative single-digits.
(We) got pretty promotional last year and we’re trying to pull back a little bit from that.
Full transcript via Seeking Alpha
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