Grocery Outlet Holding Corp. announced Monday its first planned store opening in Virginia. The Falls Church, Va., store is slated to open Feb. 12 and will kick off a series of openings across the state.
The Virginia debut comes as the grocer experiences a tough time financially. Last month, Grocery Outlet lowered its forecast for sales growth in the fourth quarter because of the delay in the distribution of food assistance benefits during the government shutdown.
The Emeryville, Calif.-based retailer said the shutdown, which suspended Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program payments, resulted in an 8.2% decline in preliminary same-store sales through Electronic Benefit Transfer payments for the month of November. Preliminary non-EBT same-store sales were down 0.5%.
As a result, Grocery Outlet said it now expects fourth-quarter comparable-store sales to be flat compared with last year, and it expects adjusted earnings per share to be at the low end of its previous forecast of between 21 cents and 23 cents. The retailer had reported same-store sales growth of 1.2% in the third quarter.
Jason Potter, president and CEO of Grocery Outlet, said Grocery Outlet continues to see positive foot traffic, but units per transaction have been down all year. In addition, the average price per item purchased has declined “in a more significant way.”
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