BJ’s Wholesale Club Inc., the nation’s No. 3 warehouse club, said Wednesday same-store sales rose 3.9 percent in September, helped by improved sales of food products.
Same-store sales, or sales at stores open at least a year, is a key indicator of retailer performance since it measures growth at existing stores rather than newly opened ones.
Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expected same-store sales to rise 2.5 percent.
Results were helped 0.2 percent from gasoline sales and hurt 0.4 percent from the absence of pharmacy sales compared with last year.
On a same-store sales basis, food sales grew by 6 percent and general merchandise sales grew by 1 percent. Coffee, dairy, frozen juices, meat and milk were strong sellers in September, BJ’s said.
Total sales for the five weeks ended Oct. 6 rose 8.6 percent to $798.9 million.
For the 35-week period ended Oct. 6, same-store sales rose 3 percent while total sales rose 7.5 percent to $5.72 billion.
