Domino’s Sees A Same-Store Slowdown In Q3

Domino’s Pizza, a fast food pizza chain with a well-known propensity for digital innovations, saw a cooldown in same-store retail sales growth last quarter, according to a report from Reuters. The restaurant’s stocks dipped nearly 5 percent on Thursday (Oct. 12), following the release of its quarterly results.

“In some ways, Domino’s is a victim of its own success, as tremendous sales and margin performance makes it challenging to see where [the] upside will emerge going forward,” said Jason West, a Credit Suisse analyst, in a client note referenced by the news site.

Domino’s third quarter profits came in at $56.4 million, a 19.5 percent growth in Q3, according to Reuters. It saw an 8.4 percent increase in sales at its stores that had been open at least a year, topping sales of rival chains as well as Wall Street’s third quarter projections. Company shares saw a 6 percent decrease early Thursday, finishing out the day down 4.6 percent. Total revenue beat out analyst predictions of $627.4 million, coming in at $643.6 million for an increase of 13.6 percent, Reuters reported.

According to Chief Financial Officer Jeffrey Lawrence, Domino’s will be raising its franchise fees from $0.21 to $0.25 starting Jan. 1, 2018, to help the chain recover the costs of recent technology investments, the Reuters article said. The company has long prided itself on being on the leading edge of technology and payment innovations in the fast food and quick service restaurant (QSR) realm.

The fast food pizza restaurant made news when it launched Easy Orders in 2013 and introduced the voice-activated feature on Alexa at the end of July of this year, according to a news article from Digiday. Customers simply need to create an Easy Order account, which allows them to save their favorite order and submit it through Domino’s website and app, Facebook Messenger or Google Home.