*same-store sales slumped 10%

Circuit City Sales Slide
Amid Pricing Pressures
By MARY ELLEN LLOYD
Circuit City Stores Inc. swung to a fiscal fourth-quarter profit amid cost cutting and a smaller write-down of its international segment, even though same-store sales slumped 10% in the holiday quarter.

Same Store Sales

A statistic used in retail industry analysis. It compares sales of stores that have been open for a year or more.

Same Store Sales, also known as "Comps", is the shortened version of the term Comparable Same Store Sales. Utilized in the retail business, same store sales are a measurement of the productivity in the revenue and sales of a store in comparison to its operation in the previous year. This enables an investor to rate the store's productivity.

Papa John’s International has also struggled in a “difficult cost and competitive environment,” said Nigel Travis, the president and chief executive, in a statement on Feb. 26. Though same-store sales fell in the fourth quarter, Mr. Travis was looking for positives. For the year, comparable-store sales inched up 2 percent.

“We were the only national pizza chain that reported positive comp sales and domestic restaurant growth in 2007,” he said in a statement.

slump (REDUCE SUDDENLY) Show phonetics
verb [I]
(of prices, values or sales) to fall suddenly:
The value of property has slumped.
Car sales have slumped dramatically over the past year.

slump Show phonetics
noun [C]
1 a fall in the price, value, sales, etc. of something:
There's been a slump in the demand for new cars.

2 a period when an industry or the economy is in a bad state and there is a lot of unemployment:
an economic slump
The airline industry is currently in a slump.