In the fourth quarter, Shoe Carnival net sales increased 13.6% to 227.6 million US dollars, compared to the fourth quarter of fiscal 2013. Comparable store sales were up by 9.5% in the fourth quarter, exceeding the company’s guidance for the quarter. Earnings per diluted share totaled 0.15 US dollars.

The gross profit margin for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014 increased to 28.6% compared to 28.5% for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2013. Net earnings for the fourth quarter totaled 3.0 million US dollars, or 0.15 US dollars per diluted share. For the fourth quarter of fiscal 2013, the Company reported net earnings of 0.6 million US dollars, or 0.03 US dollars per diluted share. Shoe Carnival claims that fourth quarter earnings were impacted by additional expense within cost of sales attributable to the west coast port congestion.

“We were pleased with our strong comparable store sales performance in the fourth quarter driven by broad based gains across all of our footwear categories. Although favorable weather played an important role in our strong performance, we believe our key initiatives of national advertising, better brands in our women’s department and aggressive multi-channel initiatives continued to bring new customers to our stores, e-commerce site, and mobile touchpoints”, commented Cliff Sifford, President and CEO of Shoe Carnival.

For fiscal year 2014, net sales increased 6.3% to 940.2 million US dollars, as compared to net sales of 884.8 million US dollars for fiscal 2013. Comparable store sales for the 52 - week period ended on the 31st of January 2015 increased 1.8%. Net earnings for fiscal 2014 totaled 25.5 million US dollars, or 1.27 US dollars per diluted share, compared to net earnings of 26.9 million US dollars, or 1.32 US dollars per diluted share, in the last fiscal year.

Shoe Carnival opened 31 stores during fiscal 2014 as compared to 32 stores in the prior year, with half of the openings taking place during the second quarter (16). There were 7 store’s closing during the year.

Cliff Sifford, President and CEO, comment: “I am proud of our entire Shoe Carnival team who worked hard to deliver great product and excellent customer service helping us to exceed our fourth quarter guidance and achieve record annual sales. I am also excited with our customers’ willingness to increasingly embrace our multi-channel shopping experience with increased traffic on-line and in our stores.”