November sales at Fred's exceed expectations

MEMPHIS Total sales and comparable-store sales both rose during the month of November for Fred's, the chain announced Tuesday.

Fred's disclosed total sales for the four-week fiscal month ended Nov. 27 increased 6% to $146.3 million from the year-ago period, while comparable-store sales for the month rose 4.7% versus a decline of 3.3% during November 2009.

Fred's also reported that total sales for the 10-month, year-to-date period increased 4% to nearly $1.51 billion, compared with $1.45 billion for year-ago period. On a comparable-store basis, year-to-date sales rose 2.4% on top of an increase of 0.5% in the same period last year.

Fred's CEO Bruce Efird said that the sales results "exceeded [our] expectations," and attributed its successful month to Black Friday.

"Our company's performance this past weekend marked a solid start to the holiday season and underscored the new merchandising and marketing plans highlighted in our third quarter earnings call last week. This could not have been accomplished without the great efforts of our operations team in preparing the stores for Black Friday and the holiday season," Efird said.