Book sales at Hastings Entertainment rose 1.8% in 2006, to $120.5 million, the retailer reported in its year-end filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Same-store book sales at Hastings were flat in the year, and the small growth in book sales came from new store openings. Hastings finished the year with 154 stores and had total revenue of $548.3 million.
Music continued to be Hastings's largest product category, although revenue in the year slipped to $126 million from $134.5 million. Video/DVD sales' share of total revenue rose in the year from 19% to 21%, hitting $115 million. In addition to new items, the retailer has been selling used products since 1992 and added used books in 2004; used and "budget-priced" items represented 9.9% of total revenue last year, up slightly from 9.4% in 2005.
To accentuate its multimedia offerings, Hastings has developed a "store-within-a-store" design that creates three departments built around specific products—books, music/videogames/boutique and video. That format is in 92 stores and Hastings plans to expand the model to seven more outlets this year. Hastings also plans to add Hard Back Cafes, which are now in 66 outlets, to five additional stores in the year. Hastings's most ambitious expansion involves its goShip program, through which individual stores ship products ordered on the gohastings.com Web site directly to consumers. Fifty-six stores participated in the program last year and Hastings expects to add another 30 in 2007.
The company's expansion plans also include opening three stores and relocating five. And although Hastings does not usually provide growth forecasts, it said it expects comp sales to increase in the low single digits in 2007.
