BJ’s Wholesale Club (BJ) Strong on Omni-Channel, Supply Efforts

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BJ’s Wholesale Club Holdings, Inc. BJ is steadily climbing up the charts, thanks to its robust business strategies and sound fundamentals. Sturdy membership trends, assortment-enhancement initiatives, advanced digital capabilities and a robust real-estate pipeline have been driving BJ’s comparable sales (comps) for a while now. BJ delivered the third straight quarter of comps growth during third-quarter fiscal 2021.
Although the persistent supply-chain and sourcing challenges are concerning, management has been undertaking prudent actions for sometime to counter these headwinds. Recently, BJ’s Wholesale Club agreed to purchase the assets and operations of four refrigerated distribution centers and the related private transportation fleet from its partner Burris Logistics. This will help the buyer insource its perishable supply chain. This deal consists of four perishable goods distribution centers (Rocky Hill, CT; Orlando, FL; Elkton, MD; Independence, KY) along with the personnel of these facilities, the associated real property and the capital assets for operations.
Via the addition of four distribution centers and a transportation fleet, BJ’s Wholesale Club will be able to strengthen its supply-chain facilities and drive overall growth. This will aid BJ to offer top-quality and fresh products to its consumers. In fact, BJ’s Wholesale Club’s partnership with Burris Logistics already complements its perishable business and supports supply-chain functions. Burris Logistics is quite a popular enterprise offering temperature-controlled distribution and logistics services across the United States.

More Strategic Details

BJ’s Wholesale Club’s focus on simplifying assortments, boosting marketing and merchandising capabilities, expanding into high-demand categories as well as building own-brands portfolio bodes well. During third-quarter fiscal 2021, BJ’s own brands penetration increased to 23% of the merchandise sales.
Management is also focused on enhancing the omni-channel capabilities to offer best to the customers. BJ’s Wholesale Club has been directing resources toward expanding digital capabilities for a while to better engage with members and provide them with a convenient way to shop, including same-day delivery, curbside pick-up and buy-online, pickup-in-club, etc.
BJ built a strong digital portfolio with Bjs.com, BerkleyJensen.com, Wellsleyfarms.com, delivery.bjs.com and its mobile app. This enables members to buy, review products and digitally add coupons to their membership card. Cumulatively, these endeavors are consistently contributing to growth in membership signups and renewals, resulting in higher membership fee income, higher average members per club and aiding comps.
In addition, BJ’s Wholesale Club also holds a three-year exclusive agreement with CommerceHub, a leading e-commerce platform allowing online order fulfillment and delivery solutions. BJ’s partnership with Citizens Pay to provide online financing solutions for large purchases also bodes well.

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Price Performance

This Westborough, MA-based player’s shares have appreciated 20.8% over the past six months against the industry’s 16.2% decline. An expected long-term earnings growth rate of 10% coupled with a VGM Score of A for this presently Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) player further demonstrates the stock’s potential. In addition, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for BJ’s sales and earnings per share (EPS) suggests growth of 6.4% and 6.9%, respectively, from the year-ago period’s corresponding reported figures.

3 Stocks to Consider

Some better-ranked stocks are Dollar Tree DLTR, Kroger KR and Oxford Industries OXM.
Discount retailer Dollar Tree has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), currently. DLTR delivered a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 8.8%, on average. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Dollar Tree’s current financial year sales and EPS suggests growth of 5.3% and 31.1%, respectively, from the year-ago period’s corresponding readings. DLTR has an expected EPS growth rate of 12.2% for three-five years.
Renowned grocery retailer Kroger has a Zacks Rank of 2 at present. KR has a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 20.3%, on average.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Kroger’s fiscal 2022 sales suggests growth of 1.8% from the year-ago corresponding reported figure. KR has an expected EPS growth rate of 8.4% for three-five years.
Oxford Industries, an apparel company, currently has a Zacks Rank #2. OXM has a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 96.7%, on average.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Oxford Industries’ current financial year’s sales and earnings suggests growth of 2.1% and 4%, respectively, from the corresponding year-ago period’s reported numbers.

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Dollar Tree, Inc. (DLTR): Free Stock Analysis Report
 
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