Shoe Carnival steps up same store sales in Q4

Shoe Carnival credited “favorable weather” with its impressive spike in same store sales in the fourth quarter.

The Indiana-based retailer of moderately priced footwear and accessories reported that net sales in the fourth quarter ended Jan. 31 increased $27.3 million to $227.6 million, compared to the fourth quarter of fiscal 2013. Same store sales increased 9.5%, which exceeded the company’s guidance for the quarter. Earnings per diluted share were 15 cents.

“We were pleased with our strong comparable store sales performance in the fourth quarter driven by broad based gains across all of our footwear categories. Although favorable weather played an important role in our strong performance, we believe our key initiatives of national advertising, better brands in our women’s department and aggressive multi-channel initiatives continued to bring new customers to our stores, e-commerce site, and mobile touchpoints,” said Cliff Sifford, president and CEO.

The company opened one new store during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014 compared to three stores in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2013.

For the full fiscal year of 2014, net sales increased 6.3% to $940.2 million, as compared to net sales of $884.8 million for fiscal 2013. Same store store sales for the 52-week period ended Jan. 31 increased 1.8%. Net earnings for fiscal 2014 were $25.5 million, or $1.27 per diluted share, compared to net earnings of $26.9 million, or $1.32 per diluted share, in the last fiscal year.

“I am proud of our entire Shoe Carnival team who worked hard to deliver great product and excellent customer service helping us to exceed our fourth quarter guidance and achieve record annual sales,” Sifford added. “I am also excited with our customers’ willingness to increasingly embrace our multi-channel shopping experience with increased traffic on-line and in our stores.”

During fiscal 2014, the company opened 31 new stores and closed seven to end the year at 400 stores. One store was opened and five were closed in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014. Total retail selling space increased to 4.4 million square feet at the end of fiscal 2014 from 4.1 million square feet at the end of fiscal 2013.

For fiscal 2015 the company expects net sales to be in the range of $977 million to $991 million, with a same store sales increase in the range of 1.5% to 3%. Earnings per diluted share for the fiscal year are expected to be in the range of $1.40 to $1.48.