CE A Drag On Jan. Sales: Discounters

By Alan Wolf -- TWICE, 2/2/2012

New York -Target and Costco gave little credit to CE for their solid sales gains in January.

Specifically, Target said its CE, music, movies and books business led the hardlines category down by the mid-single-digit range last month. Nonetheless, the discounter reported a 5.1 percent increase in net sales for the four weeks, ended Jan. 29, to $4.6 billion, and a 4.3 percent hike in comp-store sales.

Similarly, Costco finance director David Sherwood said the warehouse club's CE business "continued to be negative" in January, posting a mid-single-digit decline, while Costco's net sales rose 11 percent for the month, to $7 billion, and comp-store sales increased 8 percent excluding the positive impact of gasoline sales.