A strong main spring catalog mailing early last month boosted Talbots Inc.’s March sales to $187.1 million, up 6% from $177.1 million for the same period in 2002.
In a statement, Arnold B. Zetcher, CEO, said the catalog helped drive traffic into the company’s retail stores, as well as better-than-anticipated sales of full-price and markdown merchandise.
Year-to-date sales for the nine weeks ended April 5, 2003, increased 1% to $263.5 million compared to $261.2 million reported for the nine weeks ended April 6, 2002.
“Our strong performance in March helped to offset our below-plan results in February,” said Zetcher. “However, with the continued uncertainty in the environment and extremely low levels of markdown inventory remaining for our March/April mid-season sale, we believe it is appropriate to be cautious in our plan for April comparable store sales.”
First-quarter earnings are anticipated to be below last year’s level. The company’s current outlook for earnings per diluted share is in the range of $0.48 to $0.51, said Zetcher, compared to the $0.57 reported in the first-quarter last year.
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