BJ's Wholesale March same-store sales rise 6 percent

CHICAGO (Reuters) - BJ's Wholesale Club Inc (BJ.N) said on Thursday sales at its stores open at least a year rose 6 percent in March, more than double the rate Wall Street expected, helped by strong gasoline sales.

Shares of the No. 3 U.S. warehouse club operator rose more than 3 percent in early trading.

Analysts, on average, were expecting a same-store sales gain of 2.8 percent, according to Reuters Estimates, while the company had forecast an increase of 1 percent to 3 percent.

The same-store sales result included a contribution of 3.4 percent from sales of gasoline. A calendar shift in the timing of Easter hurt the results by 2.5 percent to 3 percent.

The company said total sales for the five weeks ended April 5 rose 8.5 percent to $858.1 million.

Same-store sales rose in weeks one, two, three and five, with the strongest increase in week two, while they fell in week four as there was one less day of sales due to the Easter holiday.

Excluding gas sales, traffic was flat, while the average transaction amount rose about 4 percent, BJ's said. Sales of food rose about 5 percent, while those of general merchandise fell about 1 percent.

Departments with the strongest sales increases included coffee and tea, dairy, eggs, juices, frozen, health and beauty, paper, pet food, produce, televisions and toys, the company said. Weaker performers included apparel, cigarettes, electronics, furniture, prerecorded videos, storage and summer seasonal.

Sales for the Natick, Massachusetts-based company, which operates 177 stores in 16 states, rose in all regions, with the highest increase in upstate New York and the smallest in the New England region.

Shares of BJ's rose 3.3 percent to $36.48 on the New York Stock Exchange.

(Reporting by Ben Klayman; Editing by John Wallace and Dave Zimmerman)