News

SAN FRANCISCO — Williams-Sonoma Inc. said Thursday it has cut its fiscal Q4 earnings outlook below Wall Street expectations due to heavy holiday promotions levels.

The company said it had to offer discounts to entice shoppers this holiday season. Although earnings guidance has been reduced to below expectations, Williams-Sonoma’s revenue outlook remains in line with Wall Street, trimmed to a range of $1.24 billion to $1.26 billion. The company had previously expected revenue as high as $1.27 billion.

San Jose, Calif. -- VeriFone Systems announced Thursday that outdoor retailer Eastern Mountain Sports has successfully piloted the VeriFone GlobalBay iPad solution in four stores and is readying a 2012 rollout.

The VeriFone GlobalBay platform is a software-as-a-service offering that enables a suite of next-generation mobile retail software for retailer-to-consumer interaction and leverages retailers' existing POS, e-commerce and store systems.

COMMERCE, Calif. — Sales at 99-Cents Only Stores rose 10.6% to $403.9 million for the third quarter of fiscal 2012 over sales of $365.4 milllion for the same quarter last year.  

The company's overall same-store sales for the third quarter of fiscal 2012 increased 8.5%. The number of same-store-sales transactions increased 5.6% and the average transaction size increased to $9.86 from $9.59.

WAYNE, N.J. — Toys"R"Us has announced that its eighth annual fundraising campaign to benefit the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation was its most successful to date, raising $4 million and collecting more than 400,000 toys to help make the holidays brighter for kids in need across the United States.

Minneapolis -- Supervalu Inc.'s fiscal third-quarter loss widened on larger write-down’s and weaker sales. The company reported a net loss of $750 million, including non-cash goodwill and intangible asset impairment charges of $800 million after-tax, from a loss of $202 million a year ago.

Supervalu said same-store sales fell 2.9% in the latest quarter. Net sales fell 4% to $8.33 billion, below analysts' average forecast of $8.42 billion.

INDIANAPOLIS — Electronics retailer Hhgregg announced that it has lowered its third-quarter forecast, reflecting weakness in the video category.

The company said that fiscal third quarter comparable-store sales are estimated to have increased 3.9%, with the video category expected to have decreased 4.8%, the appliance category expected to have increased 6.8%, the home office category expected to have increased 91.4% and the other category expected to have decreased 7.1%. 

Atlanta -- Dollar volume growth on cards overall was a healthy 6.9%  in December, according to First Data Corporation’s First Data SpendTrend analysis for the full month of December 2011 compared to December 2010. SpendTrend tracks same-store consumer spending by credit, signature debit, PIN debit, EBT cards and checks at U.S. merchant locations.

However, strong auto sales, driven by low interest rates, likely diverted consumer spending to car sales from other retail areas, the report said. Auto sales are not captured in SpendTrend figures.

New York City -- Although online sales grew 15% from 2010 to 2011, many retailers' online ordering, shipping and returns processes failed to keep pace, according to management consultancy Kurt Salmon's rankings of 50 retailers.