E-commerce continues to grow at a rapid clip for Hudson’s Bay Co., the Canadian department store chain that acquired Lord & Taylor in 2012 and Saks in 2013.
The department store chain, which paid $2.9 billion for Saks, reports in its Q3 2014 earnings report filed today that digital sales are up 73% to $62 million in its non-Saks online properties from the third quarter in 2013. Overall, the company booked a total of $228 million in e-commerce sales, with Saks contributing $166 million. Hudson’s Bay ranks no. 130 in Internet Retailer’s Top 500 Guide while Saks Direct ranks no. 38.
“We remain on track with our integration of Saks and continue to gain traction on our strategic growth initiatives, especially at HBC Digital where we experienced substantial sales growth,” CEO Richard Baker says. “We are pleased with the traction that our digital businesses are achieving. We are well-positioned for the holiday shopping season with a value proposition underpinned by differentiated merchandising and superior customer service initiatives across all our banners.”
Heavy traffic over Black Friday and Cyber Monday caused problems with the retailer’s web sites, chief financial officer Paul Beesley said on the third quarter earnings call. He added that he is confident those systems will hold up through the remainder of the shopping season.
“We worked very hard in terms of our customer service teams to respond to those (issues) very proactively,” he says. “Through the balance of the Christmas season, I think we should be fine.”
Those digital properties recently got a new leader. Hudson’s Bay hired veteran Kohl’s executive Jon Nordeen as its chief information officer in November.
Baker added that the retailer is realizing a better return on its investment in digital marketing in Canada than in the United States.
“Spending online up north in Canada is even more productive than investing online in the United States,” Baker says on the earnings call, though he did not provide details. “We are excited and feel good about the opportunity available to us continually online. We continue to focus on all of our different businesses and we think that we have a lot of opportunity ahead of us.”
For the third quarter ending Nov. 1, 2014, Hudson’s Bay also reported:
- Overall retail sales of $1.913 billion, up 94.4% from $984 million during the Q3 2013, a growth the company attributes largely to the acquisition of Saks.
- Same-store sales for the company’s Department Store Group, identified in the filing as all of its non-Saks properties, increased 1.7% from the same period last year.
- A 1% increase in same-store sales for Saks Fifth Avenue from the same period last year.
For the first nine months of 2014, Hudson’s Bay reported:
- Retail sales of $5.537 billion, up 96.6% from $2.816 billion a year ago.
- E-commerce sales of $597 million through the first 39 weeks of the fiscal year, including sales of $153 million at the company’s non-Saks digital properties, an increase of 86% across those properties from the same period last year. Hudson’s Bay did not provide e-commerce sales figures for 2013.
- Same-store sales in its Department Store Group increased 1% from the same period.
Hudson’s Bay projects sales for 2014 between $7.8 billion and 8.1 billion, in part due to anticipated e-commerce growth.
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