Autozone Boosts Sales with Store Refresh Efforts

Autozone continues to increase investments in a major store refresh initiative at its hub stores. Autozone has converted 82 of its 143 hubs to this new model to date, which includes adding additional inventory and increasing the frequency and reach of its daily deliveries to satellite stores.

"The incremental parts additions that are now sold throughout the surround satellite stores are both exceeding plan and adding to the overall sales performance of the hub store and its market," says Bill Rhodes, Chairman, President and CEO, Autozone. "With approximately 60 hubs left to convert, we will manage those rollouts accordingly."

The enhanced hub gives the retailer the ability to improve the productivity of inventory, particularly slow turning inventory. Autozone no longer has to retain slower moving products in each of our satellite stores because it can now access the slower turning SKUs from hub stores, thereby reducing working capital.

Rhodes adds, "We believe the initiatives we've put in place surrounding our Hub store enhancements, hard parts additions especially our late model coverage, disciplined category line of use, our leadership training for store manages, our ongoing development of an effective commercial sales force, enhancements to our Z-net technology, and our store refresh efforts have continued to allow us to grow both our sales volumes, and more importantly, our market share in both the DIY and Do-It-For-Me segments."