Not Enough Saturdays

Mothers Work Inc. (Philadelphia) has reported a 7.7 percent increase in net sales for June 2003. But same-store sales declined 0.6 percent.

During the month, the maternity apparel retailer opened eight locations and closed three, ending the month with 972 locations (compared to 898 at the end of June 2002).

For the company's third quarter, ended June 30, 2003, net sales increased 8 percent and same-store sales decreased 0.4 percent.

“We are pleased with our performance for the month of June,” said president and coo Rebecca Matthias, “particularly given the difficult retail environment. Our comparable-store sales decrease of 0.6 percent for the month would have been approximately 3 percentage points higher if we did not have one less Saturday in June 2003 (four Saturdays) compared to June 2002 (five Saturdays). On a combined basis for May and June, in which there were nine Saturdays both this year and last year, we delivered a comparable store sales increase of 2.0 percent.

“We are also encouraged by the pickup in sales that we experienced in the latter half of June as warmer weather in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions appears to have spurred on sales,” Matthias continued. “We remain confident in our business and feel we are well positioned from a product assortment and inventory position.”

Mothers Work operates 972 maternity locations, including 821 stores and 151 leased departments, predominantly under the tradenames Motherhood Maternity, A Pea in the Pod and Mimi Maternity.