NEW YORK –
Target and Costco gave
little credit to CE for their solid sales
gains in January.
Rather,
Target
said its CE, music,
movies and books business led a midsingle-
digit decline in its hardlines category
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 compstore
sales increased 8 percent excluding
the positive impact of gasoline sales.