Good News

Limited Brands (Columbus, Ohio) and Nordstrom (Seattle) — two bellwether retailers that have struggled lately — both reported sales increases for the spring.

Limited Brands, the re-name of The Limited organization, reported a comp-store sales increase of 4 percent for the fiscal quarter ending June 1, 2002. Net sales were up 8 percent.

For the four weeks ended June 1, comp-store sales were up 5 percent and net sales were up 8 percent.

Nordstrom showed a 5.8 percent net sales increase for the four-week period ending June 1, and a comp-store increase of 1.1 percent. The retailer said same-store sales in full-line stores increased in the Northwest geographic region, and were flat in the Southwest, central states and East Coast regions. Also, same-store sales increased in the accessories, cosmetics, women's shoes and kids wear merchandise categories. Women's apparel was also positive for the month, driven by increases in designer, contemporary, bridge and junior's.

Preliminary year-to-date sales are up 3 percent; same-store sales are down 1.3 percent.

Chico's (Fort Myers, Fla.), the fast-growing women's apparel retailer, reported record sales and a 42.1 percent increase for the four-week period ended June 1. Same-store jumped 13.6 percent.

For the quarter ending June 1, total sales increased 40.5 percent and same-store sales increased 13.3 percent. Chico's sells exclusively designed, private-label women's casual clothing and related accessories, operating a chain of 326 stores in 40 states and the District of Columbia — 315 company-owned and 11 franchised.

And Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (Bentonville, Ark.) reported that net sales for the four-week period ending May 31climbed 11.5 percent; sales for the 17-week period were up 12.7 percent.

The Wal-Mart division's sales were up 13.6 percent for the four-week period and up 14.6 percent for the 17-week period. Sam's Club sales jumped 9.8 percent for four weeks, 10.8 for 17 weeks. International sales were up 9 percent for four weeks, 10.6 percent year-to-date.