Business Analytics

Fort Worth, Texas – Pier 1 Imports Inc. has named senior VP of planning Laura A. Coffey, 48, as interim CFO. The move comes as Pier 1 reduces its guidance for fiscal 2015 and Charles “Cary” Turner retires as senior executive VP and CFO.

Charlotte, N.C. – Family Dollar Stores Inc. is putting its head in a cloud in order to clear its operations. As part of a three-year agreement, Family Dollar has licensed Cloud360, Cognizant's proprietary, enterprise-class cloud management platform developed on Amazon Web Services for its portal applications.

Savannah, Ga. – Specialty discount apparel retailer Citi Trends Inc. reported some encouraging trends in terms of sales for fiscal and full year 2014. Total sales for the fourth quarter increased 15% to $181.1 million, compared with $157.2 million in the same period a year earlier.

Same-store sales increased 13.9% in the fourth quarter. A number of winter storm-related closings in January 2014 and an earlier start to tax refund season the last two days of the month in January 2015 helped boost same-store sales for the quarter.

Atlanta – Much of the country is struggling with one of the snowiest winters in history, but The Home Depot Inc. is thinking green. Home Depot has begun filling more than 80,000 positions in the U.S. as it prepares for spring, the company's busiest selling season.

The company is now recruiting for positions both in its stores and distribution facilities. From sales and cashiers to operations and online order fulfillment, opportunities available include both permanent part-time and seasonal positions. Applications must be submitted online.

Seattle – Rising selling, general and administrative (SG&A) expenses resulted in shrinking profits for Blue Nile Inc. during the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2014, despite healthy sales growth. In the fourth quarter, net income dropped 2% to $4.83 million from $4.93 million.

Net sales rose 8% to $157.47 million from $145.96 million. During the full fiscal year, net income fell 12% to $9.73 million, from $10.87 million. Net sales grew 5% to $473.51 million, from $450 million.

San Francisco -- Gap Inc. raised its annual profit guidance based on its fourth-quarter sales and reduced taxes. The retailer expects to report a profit of $2.86 to $2.87 per share for the year, up from its previous estimate of $2.73 to $2.78 per share.

Gap reported that its net sales increased 3% for the quarter, to $4.71 billion compared with $4.58 billion for the fourth quarter last year. Same-store sales rose 2%.

Starkville, Miss. -- Camgian Microsystems announced today the closing of a new contract to deploy Egburt into the largest fred’s Super Dollar franchise group in the U.S. to provide company personnel with real-time actionable intelligence through the monitoring of equipment health and customer foot traffic.

Phoenix – Same-store sales rose 2.6% at PetSmart Inc. during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014. Average ticket increased 2%, and same-store transactions increased 0.6%.

Gap Inc. is raising its profit guidance based on its fourth-quarter sales and reduced taxes.

The retailer says it expects to report a profit of $2.86 to $2.87 per share for the year, up from its previous estimate of $2.73 to $2.78 per share. Analysts expected $2.74 per share on average.

The San Francisco company says its total fourth-quarter sales grew 3% to $4.71 billion compared with $4.58 billion for the fourth quarter last year.

San Diego – Early results of 2015 suggest it will be a happy New Year indeed for PriceSmart Inc. For the month of January 2015, net sales increased 13.3% to $219.2 million from $193.5 million in January a year earlier.

The retailer’s growth to 36 warehouse stores from 32 a year earlier helped boost sales. In addition, same-store warehouse sales grew 1.7%.