TJX, the American parent company of T.K. Maxx and HomeSense, not only surpassed $30bn in annual sales but also hailed it 20th consecutive year of increases in comparable store sales and earnings per share.
Where the market has been somewhat difficult for retailers selling apparel and other softline goods, TJX‘s 1,000-plus-strong buying group was able to boost its merchandise and even pack away inventory for later seasons.
The group recorded a 6.4% jump in annual sales to $30.94bn and sales at stores open at least a year grew 5%, accelerated by customer traffic.
“Our 2015 performance once again demonstrates the power of our differentiated, flexible business model to succeed across many different geographic, economic and retail environments,” said Ernie Herrman, who took over as CEO at the end of January.
TJX capped the year with fourth-quarter earnings and sales that beat Wall Street expectations.
TJX is the “better mousetrap,” Howard Tubin, a Guggenheim Securities analyst told the Boston Herald.
“They have a business model like almost no other business model out there, and they have a large global buying organization that allows them to be very nimble, to always find very attractive merchandise at great value,” he said.
“In an environment where you could‘ve gone to a mall at any point in time between November and December and purchase anything you wanted at a significant discount — 30% to ”¨40% — shoppers still went to TJX.”
TJX currently operates 3,614 stores and closed only one last year. Herrman is confident the potential is there to elevate store count to 5,600.
