TJX gearing up for e-commerce and brick-and-mortar expansion

The value-oriented retailer sees e-commerce opportunity at HomeGoods and store expansion across all banners, including the newer Homesense.

FRAMINGHAM, Mass. — TJX Cos. is getting aggressive again on both the digital and brick-and-mortar fronts and particularly in the home category.

With the release of its third-quarter results last week, the parent company of TJMaxx, HomeGoods, Homesense and other banners, said it will roll out e-commerce to HomeGoods next year and has more than 100 store openings on tap across all its brands.

The company, which has enjoyed success with its treasure-hunt store environment (but struggled along with many retailers due to mandatory store shutdowns early on during the pandemic;) has been slow to the e-commerce game. In response to a question on the earnings call with the investment community President and CEO Ernie Herrman, said “a lot of home business is being done online and so there is just such a big territory out there of market share we can go to grab from.” 

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And in earlier prepared remarks, he had this to say: “We believe HomeGoods e-commerce will allow us to leverage both our strength in the home category and the power of our global buying organization and sourcing universe. We believe this will allow us to satisfy our current customer base, which is expanding, and continue to attract new shoppers.”

TJX didn’t say exactly how many new stores it plans to open next year, but the 4,574-store company definitely is picking up the pace. This year, it will open about 50 stores. Next year, it will be “north of 100,” Chief Financial Officer Scott Goldenberg said on the call. 

That’s across all banners, but Herrman pointed out the opportunity it’s seeing particularly at HomeGoods (821 stores at quarter end), and it’s larger furniture sub-brand Homesense, still in its infancy with just 34 locations and featuring more large-scale furniture. 

Herrman said, “another place where … we’ll be opening some stores because our trend there has also been strong is with some Homesense stores scattered amongst the other total HomeGoods stores…

“(If) the real estate deal is right … and it’s near a HomeGoods, we’re going to take advantage of that …  as we’ve seen our cannibalization, when we open up a Homesense right near a HomeGoods, has been close to non-existent. If anything we’re seeing a slight lift … because of differentiation.”

The HomeGoods division, which includes the Homesense stores, has been a star performer, the only one with “open-only” comp store sales in positive territory for the quarter, up 15%. Open-only comps exclude e-commerce sales.

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