Ross Stores plans 100 new units in 2018

Ross Stores opened 23 Ross Dress for Less and six DD's Discounts stores in February and March. These are part of the Dublin, Calif.–based company's plans to roll out about 100 new stores during fiscal 2018 — 75 Ross Dress for Less and 25 DD's Discounts.

"With these recent openings, we continued our growth in both new and existing markets," said James Fassio, the company's president and chief development officer. "Our newest market for Ross Dress for Less is Nebraska, and for DD's Discounts we entered Illinois with two new stores. We now operate a total of 1,651 Ross Dress for Less and DD's locations across 38 states, the District of Columbia and Guam. As we look out over the long term, we remain confident that Ross can grow to 2,000 locations and DD's can become a chain of 500 stores."

The company's same-store sales for the 13 weeks ended Jan. 27 climbed by 5 percent, on top of a 4 percent gain for the previous year's comparable period. For the 52 weeks to end Feb. 2, 2019, Ross Stores is forecasting that same-store sales will grow by between 1 and 2 percent.