Foot Locker Inc. raced to the finish line of the first half of fiscal 2015 with a strong showing in its domestic online sales. The retail chain is looking to Europe to improve its global reach.
Chief financial officer Lauren Peters told analysts on the athletic apparel retailer’s fiscal Q2 earnings call that the company made significant but unspecified improvements to its online presence in Europe during the quarter. She didn’t specify the impact those improvements had on the bottom line.
Domestically however, Foot Locker posted another strong quarter online, with Peters telling analysts that domestic online sales grew more than 40% year-over-year during the quarter. Foot Locker, No. 54 in the Internet Retailer 2015 Top 500 Guide, does not break out online sales.
Peters also said direct-to-consumer sales, which include online sales, accounted for 11.3% of overall sales during the quarter. Based on Internet Retailer’s calculations, that would put that figure at $191.5 million, which is up 11.1% from $172.3 million during the same period last year, when direct-to-consumer sales accounted for 10.5% of Foot Locker’s overall sales.
CEO Dick Johnson said consumers can expect to see more improvements to Foot Locker’s e-commerce presence.
“Our next strategic initiative to build a more powerful digital business remains firmly on track, with steady high-teens sales increases with strong margins. Our digital performance sometimes almost seems automatic,” he told analysts on the call, according to a transcript from Seeking Alpha. “It takes a lot of technology investments, product and marketing coordination with our store teams, analysis of massive amounts of data and outstanding customer service to be a leader in the omnichannel world. And we’ve continued to be just that.”
Leading those improvements will be new chief information officer Pawan Verma. Foot Locker hired Verma from Target Corp., No. 16 in the Top 500, earlier this month.
For the second quarter ended Aug. 1, Foot Locker reported:
- Net sales of $1.695 billion, up 3.3% from $1.641 billion during the same time last year.
- Net income of $119 million, up 29.3% from $92 million.
- Comparable-store sales up 9.6%.
For the first six months of fiscal 2015, Foot Locker reported:
- Net sales of $3.611 billion, up 2.9% from $3.509 billion during the same time last year.
- Net income of $303 million, up 19.3% from $254 million.