Mothers Work Inc. (Philadelphia) announced that net sales for the month of June 2005 increased 11.4 percent, but comparable-store sales decreased 0.5 percent.
During June, the maternity wear retailer opened one multi-brand store and closed four.
For the third quarter ended June 30, 2005, net sales increased 9.4 percent and comparable-store sales decreased 1.9 percent.
“Our sales were very strong during the first half of June,” said president and coo Rebecca Matthias, “with our comparable-store sales for the first half of June consistent with our prior guidance of a comparable-store sales increase of between 3 percent and 6 percent for the month, reflecting more favorable weather and the benefit of pent-up demand for warm weather merchandise after the weak sales of such seasonal merchandise in May. However, our sales results weakened significantly during the second half of June, such that our full month comparable-store sales for June decreased 0.5 percent, lower than our prior guidance of a 3 – 6 percent comparable-store sales increase for the full month. As a result, our sales for the third quarter of $152.7 million were lower than our prior guidance of approximately $157 million of sales, with our comparable-store sales decrease of 1.9 percent for the quarter falling short of our prior guidance for third quarter comparable-store sales of between -1 percent and +1 percent.
“With this lower-than-planned sales for the quarter, offset somewhat by lower than planned operating expenses, reflecting continued tight expense controls, we expect our third quarter reported earnings to be at the bottom end of our prior guidance. Although we are not satisfied with our 1.9 percent comparable-store sales decrease for the third quarter, we are pleased to see the significant rebound in our sales in June compared to our very weak sales in May, and the continued improvement from our comparable-store sales decrease of 4.2 percent for the first quarter this year (October through December) and our comparable-store sales decrease of 3 percent for the second quarter this year (January through March).”