GREAT MOMENTS IN RETAIL

What a month! Spotlighting the top-performing stores in December

What a way to end the year! The last two weeks of December proved the highpoint of 2006. During that period, thanks to the rush to buy Christmas gifts followed by the Boxing Week sale, Roots stores generated the greatest December sales revenue in the history of the company.

Such was the demand from customers to buy products that in stores across the country by New Year’s Day, many shelves were almost empty. During Boxing Week, some stores attracted such large crowds that security was needed to control the flow of people. Huge lineups of customers at the cash registers were common, and in some cases customers had to wait in line for up to an hour to pay for their purchases.

The result is that the highest number of stores this year achieved or exceeded their sales target for the month. In terms of ‘Store of the Month’ honours, the Roots store in Kingston, Ontario captured first place among company stores while the Fanshaw Outlet in London, Ontario headed the pack in the Outlet sector. The Kingston store surpassed its sales target by more that 205 percent and the Fanshaw Outlet finished the month 145 percent over budget.

Congratulations to Store Managers Jennifer Levesque of Kingston and Phil Papadopoulos of Fanshaw, London, along with their respective teams for their performance. And hats off to the entire retail staff for contributing to such a record-breaking month of December across the board.