As Other Retailers Close Stores, TJX Seeks to Expand
Off-price apparel and home fashions retailer The TJX Companies, Inc. celebrated 40 years as a company in 2016 and marked its 21st consecutive year of comp sales increases. In fact, over four decades, the company has had an annual comparable store sales decline in only one year. The parent company of TJ Maxx, Home Goods, and Marshalls saw same-store sales rise 3% during its fourth quarter 2017. Its comp was driven by traffic again this quarter, which excludes the e-commerce businesses.
Now the company plans to grow its store count by 50 percent over time, adding 1,800 stores to its current 3,785 stores in nine countries.
It also announced plans for a new launching a second home concept, differentiated from Home Goods. The first four stores are expected to open later this year.
"We plan to leverage our existing distribution centers, supply chain and buying organization, which is similar to what we did when we launched Marshalls in Canada," said CEO Ernie L. Herrman. "While we are proud to have grown HomeGoods' customer base for many years, we believe we remain significantly underpenetrated in the total U.S. home market and enormous opportunity remains for us to gain share in this space. Our customers are passionate about HomeGoods, and we are confident they will love our new home concept too."
"We continue to see a favorable real estate environment and are taking advantage of many opportunities around the world," he said. "This year, we are planning to accelerate our pace of store growth and surpass the 4,000 store milestone."
"With e-commerce, we continue to differentiate our mix to encourage consumers to shop both online and in our stores," Herrman also noted. "While still a small piece of our overall business, we view e-commerce as complementary to our stores and as another way to drive incremental sales and traffic."
Now the company plans to grow its store count by 50 percent over time, adding 1,800 stores to its current 3,785 stores in nine countries.
It also announced plans for a new launching a second home concept, differentiated from Home Goods. The first four stores are expected to open later this year.
"We plan to leverage our existing distribution centers, supply chain and buying organization, which is similar to what we did when we launched Marshalls in Canada," said CEO Ernie L. Herrman. "While we are proud to have grown HomeGoods' customer base for many years, we believe we remain significantly underpenetrated in the total U.S. home market and enormous opportunity remains for us to gain share in this space. Our customers are passionate about HomeGoods, and we are confident they will love our new home concept too."
TJX Companies Expansion Plans
- In North America the company sees the potential to open about 1,300 more stores.
- At Marmaxx, its sees the long-term potential to grow to 3,000 stores, about 800 more than today.
- In Canada, its long-term store growth target of 500 stores includes growing Marshalls to at least a 100-store chain.
- Beyond North America, it sees a long-term potential for TJX International of 1,100 stores.
- In Australia, the company has made progress integrating Trade Secret into the TJX model since its acquisition over a year ago. It will be converting stores in Australia to T.K. Maxx this spring and expects to grow T.K. Maxx to 125 stores long term.
- In fiscal 2017, the company grew its store base by 198 stores or almost 6%.
- In 2017, the company expects to remodel approximately 260 stores across the company.
- As to the HomeGoods chain, the company expects to open approximately 85 stores, including four of the new U.S. home concept stores. About 20 of these openings are planned within some of the larger existing Marmaxx stores.
- At Sierra Trading Post, the company is testing its brick-and-mortar format and transitioning the online business to offering off-price values every day. It has additional store openings planned across the U.S. this year.
"We continue to see a favorable real estate environment and are taking advantage of many opportunities around the world," he said. "This year, we are planning to accelerate our pace of store growth and surpass the 4,000 store milestone."
"With e-commerce, we continue to differentiate our mix to encourage consumers to shop both online and in our stores," Herrman also noted. "While still a small piece of our overall business, we view e-commerce as complementary to our stores and as another way to drive incremental sales and traffic."