June sales at existing stores came in better than analysts expected for mall retailers Pacific Sunwear of California Inc. and Wet Seal Inc.
Sales at stores open at least a year rose 3% at Anaheim-based Pacific Sunwear, which operates stores selling clothes inspired by surfing and skateboarding.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial forecast a same-store sales decline of 1.8%.
The gain was driven by promotions on shorts and swimwear that offset otherwise sluggish sales, said Mitch Kummetz of Robert W. Baird & Co.
For the four weeks ended last Saturday, the company’s total sales rose 5% from a year earlier to $127.2 million.
Pacific Sunwear runs 938 stores across the country. Earlier this year, it closed a chain of stores selling urban, hip-hop style clothes and small shoe store chain to focus on its PacSun surfwear stores.
The company, whose shares are down about 60% in the past year with a recent market value of $580 million, also threw a bone to shareholders Thursday with a plan to buy back $50 million of its shares.
Share buybacks boost profits per share, a key Wall Street measure.
Foothill Ranch-based Wet Seal, which runs clothing stores for girls and young women, saw June same-store sales fall 2.9%, a slightly better showing than Wall Street was expecting.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial, on average, expected same-store sales to slip 3%.
Same-store sales at the company’s Wet Seal chain for teen girls fell 0.8%. The Arden B. chain for young women continued to slump with a 10.7% decline.
Total sales for the five week ended last Saturday were $56.9 million, up 4.5% from a year earlier.
Wet Seal upped its adjusted profit forecast for the three months through early August.
Excluding a $1.9 million interest charge, the company said it expects earnings of $8.3 million to $10.1 million, up from an earlier estimate of $7.36 million to $9.2 million.
PacSun and Wet Seal face a tough market in which retailers have been among the hardest hit by the economic slowdown.
Both have been restructuring operations and reworking the clothes they sell in a bid to drive sales to shoppers hit by rising costs for everyday expensese.
