Business Analytics

Atlanta – The Home Depot Inc. has promoted Ted Decker to executive VP of merchandising, effective Aug. 4. Decker is a 14-year veteran of The Home Depot, where he most recently served as senior VP of retail finance, pricing analytics and assortment planning.

Atlanta – Havertys reported essentially flat net income growth in the second quarter of fiscal 2014. Net income was $4.82 million, compared to $4.83 million in the second quarter of the prior fiscal year.

Net sales rose 2.5% to $175.13 million, from $171.11 million. Same-store sales climbed 3.2%.
 

Fortune Brands Home & Security has acquired Sentry Safe, a leading manufacturer of personal safes with estimated annual sales of $150 million. The transaction closed early this week for $117.5 million and was funded from the company's existing credit facilities.

Sentry Safe will become part of Master Lock, a leading padlock brand in North America. Sentry Safe is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and has approximately 500 employees, with manufacturing facilities in Rochester, New York, and Cannelton, Indiana.

Austin, Texas -- Whole Foods Market reported that profit for the third quarter rose to $151 million from $142 million last year, but revenue and same-store sales missed projections, sending the organic grocer’s shares downward.

Revenue rose to $3.38 billion from $3.06 billion, shy of the $3.39 billion expected by Wall Street. Same-store sales rose 3.9%, well short of the estimated 4.9% gain and marking the worst performance in at least 14 quarters.

San Francisco – Twitter reported a net loss of $144.6 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2014, up from $42.2 million in the same period a year earlier. Stock compensation drove the increase in net loss.

Revenue more than doubled to $312.17 million from $139.29 million. In Twitter-specific metrics, average monthly users grew 24% to 271 million. Seventy-eight percent those users were mobile, a 29% increase from the same period a year earlier.

El Segundo, Calif. – Expenses associated with the development of its e-commerce platform helped drive net income at Big 5 Sporting Goods Corp. down 59% to $2.5 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2014, from $6.1 million in the same quarter a year earlier.

For the fiscal 2014 full year, Big 5 currently anticipates opening approximately 12 net new stores

Santa Cruz, Calif. - Sixty-six percent of retailers attending the recent Big Data & Analytics for Retail Summit believe the number one way to ensure a successful holiday season is to understand customer behavior to drive sales and build loyalty. Moreover, data from business analytics provider Looker shows that four-in-10 retailers feel they are still ineffective when it comes to using data to improve business performance.

After a delay of several days, Lumber Liquidators has reported second-quarter results, nearly three weeks after the company revised its full-year guidance, which caused its stock to plummet in recent days.

Net sales for the quarter increased by 2.3%, totaling $263.1 million, compared with $257.1 million in the same quarter last year. But comparable-store sales decreased by 7.1%, with the average sale declining 1.8%. Net income was $16.6 million for the three months ended June 30, down 18.7% from last year's $20.4 million.

Big 5 Sporting Goods’ second-quarter results were affected by a continued reduction in demand for firearms and ammunition. The company also pointed to general softness in the overall consumer environment, adding that the calendar shift of the Easter holiday had a small but unfavorable impact on sales.

Same-store sales continue to decelerate at Whole Foods as the nation’s leading natural and organic grocer continues to face traffic and ticket pressures caused by upstart rivals and established competitors.