Business Analytics

BURLINGTON, N.J. — Burlington Coat Factory reported that total sales for its second quarter increased 8.9% to $793 million and comparable-store sales were up 4%.

For the year-to-date, total sales rose 6.1% to $1.8 billion and same-store sales climbed 2.1%.

Springfield, Mass. -- Big Y Supermarkets plans to get rid of self-checkouts in all of its 61 stores by the end of 2011.

Washington, D.C. -- Applied Predictive Technologies said Tuesday that family restaurant chain Denny’s Corp. has licensed APT's Test & Learn Management System.  

Denny’s will use APT’s solution to test strategic and tactical initiatives across its 1,670 restaurants.

Dallas -- Neiman Marcus Group reported a fiscal fourth-quarter loss on debt-related expense and slightly lower margins, even as its revenue rose 11%.

For the quarter ended July 30, Neiman Marcus lost $61.4 million, compared with a year-earlier loss of $32.8 million. Excluding a $42.7 million after-tax loss on debt extinguishment, the adjusted loss was $18.7 million. Gross margin narrowed to 30.5% from 30.9%.

New York City -- Kohl’s said it has notified the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it is delaying filing its second quarter filing as its deals with previously reported errors in its accounting for both store and equipment leases. 

As a result of these and other less significant accounting corrections, Kohl's expects to record additional property and financing obligations on its balance sheet. The company said it doesn't expect the corrections to have an impact on the net increase or decrease in cash and cash equivalents reported.

Ankeny, Iowa -- Casey's General Stores said that its net income climbed 6% to $39.3 million in the most recent quarter, fueled by new stores. But rising costs for some commodities cut into its profit margins and its results fell shy Wall Street expectations.

The company's overall profit margin fell to 14.2% from 17.2%.

San Diego -- PriceSmart's same-store sales rose 17.7% in August. Total revenue for the five weeks ended Sept. 4 climbed 21.5% to $148.3 million.

PriceSmart also announced that on August 19, 2011 opened its first warehouse club in Colombia. This warehouse club, located in Barranquilla, brings to 29 the total number of warehouse clubs in operation by the company.

PriceSmart, based in San Diego, had 29 warehouse clubs at August's end. The company runs membership warehouse clubs in Central America and the Caribbean.

NAPERVILLE, Ill. and BOCA RATON, Fla. — OfficeMax and Office Depot had very different things to say about their respective back-to-school sales performances during presentations at the Goldman Sachs Annual Global Retailing Conference.

OfficeMax has been experiencing slower sales as consumers continue to be price conscious. In addition, Ravi Saligram, president and CEO of OfficeMax, reported that back-to-school sales are soft and the company is experiencing weaker technology sales.

DEERFIELD, Ill. — Walgreens reported that total sales for August were $6.1 billion, an increase of 7.8% from $5.66 billion for the same month in 2010. Total front-end sales increased 6.8% in August, while comparable store front-end sales increased 4.8%. Customer traffic in comparable stores increased 2.5% and basket size increased 2.3%.

Walgreens said Hurricane Irene had no significant net effect on total sales.

New York City -- Walgreens said same-store sales rose 5.6% in August, better than expectations, helped by a calendar day shift.

Same-store front-end sales  rose 4.8%, while same-store pharmacy sales rose 5.2% in August. Overall, net sales rose 7.8%, to $6.1 billion. Total sales for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011, which ended Aug. 31, were $17.94 billion, up 6.4% from the year-ago period.