Container Store working on traffic troubles

Fewer shoppers were in the mood to buy containers last fall, as the Container Store blamed its third quarter performance on lower customer traffic.

The company said same-store sales declined 3.5% in the third quarter that ended Nov. 29.

“We were not satisfied with our comparable-store sales and are working to fix it. Traffic has been the culprit, as the average customer transaction was up 2%,” Container Store Group CEO Kip Tindell said.

But, Tindell added, traffic turned positive in the fourth quarter.

Fourth-quarter same-store sales are up 2.7% to date, he said. Given the difficult third quarter, Tindell said, the company decided to share some results from the current quarter.

The company’s loyalty program, which launched in all stores last July, has signed up 1.5 million customers, said Melissa Reiff, Container Store president.

The Texas-based chain reported a third-quarter profit of $6.25 million, or 13 cents a share, vs. a loss of $25 million, or $1.39 a share, a year earlier.Online sales were up 13.2 percent from the third quarter last year.

For the year, the company expects a profit in the range of 52 cents to 55 cents a share and sales in the range of $785 million to $795 million.