The children’s apparel group has seen early success with its buy online, pick up in store service.

Carter’s Inc. is closing in on an online sales milestone.

Online sales companywide grew 24% year over year in 2016 to nearly $500 million, CEO Michael Casey told analysts on the children’s apparel company’s recent fourth quarter 2016 earnings call, though he declined to specify an exact figure. Carter’s, No. 113 in the Internet Retailer 2016 Top 500 Guide, does not provide an e-commerce total sales number by brand but it reported that U.S. online sales for its Carter’s brand grew $50.6 million in 2016 while its OshKosh brand grew online sales by $18.7 million in the U.S. In Q4 2015, the company reported that its Carter’s brand U.S. online sales increased $38.5 million in the period and Oshkosh by $14.2 million.

“Given the success of our e-commerce business, and the secular shift to online shopping, we expect our domestic e-commerce sales to contribute $350 million to our growth over the next five years,” Casey said, according to a transcript from Seeking Alpha. “That is expected to be the largest contributor to our billion-dollar growth plan.”

“The customer experience in our stores is obviously very important, which is why we have been investing in a number of areas such as our omnichannel initiatives,” chief financial officer Richard Westenberger told analysts on the call. “As the online and stores channels continue to converge, we want to provide our customers with the seamless experiences and capabilities which they expect.”

For the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, Carter’s reported:

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  • Net sales of $934.2 million, up 7.8% from $866.5 million in Q4 2015.
  • Net income of $87.1 million, up 20.0% from $72.6 million.

For all of 2016, Carter’s reported:

  • Net sales of $3.199 billion, up 6.1% from $3.014 billion a year ago.
  • Net income of $258.1 million, up 8.5% from $237.8 million.
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