Same-store sales growth

Sales growth from stores open for at least a full year, stripping out the effect of new openings.

A retailer whose comparable stores grew from ₹3,000 crore to ₹3,300 crore reports 10%.

The measure exists because total revenue growth at a retailer says almost nothing. A chain adding 20% more floor space every year will report 20% revenue growth even if every existing store is declining, and the decline only becomes visible when expansion slows. Separating the two tells you whether the concept works or whether the company is simply buying growth with capital, and the distinction usually surfaces two or three years before the market notices it.

Definitions vary between companies. Some include stores open twelve months, some twenty-four, and some exclude stores that were refurbished.

Read the definition in the footnote before comparing two chains.

New stores flatter everything. Strip them out.

The measure also decomposes, which is where the operating story sits. Comparable growth is footfall multiplied by conversion multiplied by basket size, and each of the three has a different cause. More visitors is a marketing or location story. Higher conversion is a merchandising or availability story. A bigger basket is a mix or pricing story. A chain reporting 10% comparable growth built entirely on price in an inflationary year has not grown at all in volume terms, and the three-way split is the only way to see it.