Mass Merchant

Los Angeles -- Guess Inc. reported Wednesday a profit of $36.6 million for the third quarter, down 44.7% from net earnings of $66.3 million in the same period last year.
 
Revenue fell 2.2% to $628.8 million, from $642.8 million in the prior-year quarter, but beating analysts’ expected $624.8 million in revenue. Retail sales in North America dipped 1.3% to $262.1 million. Same-store sales overall dropped 6%.
 
The company said economic pressures hurt consumer confidence in most of its markets.

TJX Companies reported a 3% comp increase on top of a prior year gain of 4% while Ross Stores said posted a comp increase of 2% compared to last November’s 5% comp increase.

Total sales at TJX increased 7% to $2.2 billion during the November reporting period and so far this year sales at the company have advanced 10% to $20.3 billion. Total sales for November at Ross increased 6% to $813 million and so far this year are up 11% to nearly $7.8 billion.

New York -- Facebook said referral traffic to retail sites from Facebook on Cyber Monday increased 240%, compared to average referral traffic for the last several Mondays.

Among  U.S. retailers, Walmart, Toys “R” Us, Macy’s, Amazon and Converse were the five most talked-about brands on Black Friday, according to Facebook’s People Talking About metric.

New York -- Retailers that opened early on Thanksgiving evening gained an advantage and that promotional activity was about on par with last year, according to a new Moody’s report, “Thanksgiving Weekend: The Early Bird Gets the Worm.”

New York -- Many retailers blamed Hurricane Sandy for weak sales in November, although some companies were buoyed later in the month by a long Thanksgiving weekend.

Eighteen retailers reported that sales in November through last Saturday were up 1.7% compared with the year-ago period, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers. That is below the anticipated forecast for a 4.5% to 5.5% gain.

Cincinnati -- Kroger Co. reported Thursday that net income for the quarter ended Nov. 3 rose to $316.5 million, compared with $195.9 million in the year-ago period.

Total sales rose 6% to $21.81 billion, beating Wall Street’s expected revenue of $21.55 billion.

Same-store sales rose 3.2%.

ABILENE, Kan. — Broad-line retailer ALCO Stores asserted that it is off to a favorable start this holiday season, after reporting a 2.7% in sales from continuing operations for the quarterly period ending November 25.

CINCINNATI — Good news for Macy’s, which has closed the cash tender offer by its wholly owned subsidiary, Macy’s Retail Holdings, Inc., to purchase up to $700 million in aggregate principal amount of its outstanding debt securities.

“Through this transaction and our recent debt issuance, we have successfully improved our debt maturity profile and decreased our ongoing interest expense,” said Karen M. Hoguet, Macy’s, Inc. CFO.