Like-for-Like Sales

The growth in sales from stores that traded in both periods being compared, leaving out stores opened, closed or resized in between, so that it measures how hard the existing estate is trading rather than how much space was added. Retailers define the base themselves, often stores open for a year or more, and many include online sales; American retailers call the same measure same-store or comparable sales. A retailer can grow total sales while its like-for-like sales fall, which is why analysts read the two apart.