Saks holiday sales soar 10.2 percent
January 11, 2008

New York—Same-store sales at Saks Inc. increased 0.8 percent for the five weeks ended Jan. 5, with fine jewelry as one of the top sellers, the company announced yesterday.

Owned sales increased 0.8 percent to $447.7 million for the period, compared with $444 million for the five weeks ended Dec. 30, 2006.

For the two-month holiday selling period ended Jan. 5, same-store sales skyrocketed 10.2 percent, and owned sales increased 10.6 percent to $795.3 million, compared with $719.2 million for the two months ended Dec. 30, 2006.

As expected, comparable-store sales were outsized in November and below average in December due to the retail calendar shift and promotional adjustments.

On a year-to-date basis, same-store sales increased 12.3 percent for the 11 months ended Jan. 5, and owned sales increased 13.9 percent to $3,058.8 million, compared with $2,684.9 million for the 11 months ended Dec. 30, 2006.

For December, the strongest categories at Saks Fifth Avenue were fine jewelry; women’s shoes, accessories and handbags; men’s accessories, shoes and contemporary apparel; and outerwear.

The weakest categories were women’s modern collections, women’s contemporary sportswear, women’s “gold range” apparel and Salon Z (women’s large sizes).

Saks Direct and Off 5th performed well for the month.

As expected, the company continues to experience a more challenging macroeconomic and competitive environment, and consistent with third-quarter trends, customers have continued to shift more of their spending to promotional events.

As previously disclosed, management expects same-store sales growth of high-single digits in the aggregate for the fourth quarter.

Saks Inc. currently operates Saks Fifth Avenue, which consists of 54 Saks Fifth Avenue stores, 49 Saks Off 5th stores and Saks.com. The company also operates Club Libby Lu specialty stores.