Dollar General sees progress in home

HTT Staff -- Home Textiles Today, 12/11/2012 12:28:44 PM

Goodlettsville, Tenn. - During Dollar General's Q3 earnings call this morning, chairman and ceo Rick Dreiling reported that the company has been making progress in home.

"When you look at bed and bath, we are much more relevant than we were a year ago," he told analysts. Dreiling cited better sourcing as one of the drivers of improvement in the category.

Net income for quarter ended Nov. 2 rose 21.6% to $208 million, or earnings per share ("EPS") of 62 cents. Sales increased 10.3% to $3.96 billion, with comps up 4.0%.

The company attributed the growth to increases in customer traffic and average transaction amount. Coolers and perishable items were attributed for improving the customer's average basket size from $11 per visit to $17 per visit.

Despite the positive report, Dreiling warned of consumer uncertainty, saying that he's "rarely seen weekly sales fluctuate as they have lately."

He sees the current consumer mindset as fatigued and scared, adding, "Every time they turn on the TV there's some guy in a suit telling them the world's going over a fiscal cliff."

Nevertheless, Dreiling pointed out that Dollar General has had 23 years of same store sales growth and has "done well in good times and bad."

Dollar General is on track to complete its goal of 625 new stores for 2012 and plans to open 635 stores in 2013.