These Are the Fastest-Growing Retailers in the US

Washington—A Dublin, Ireland-based fast fashion company was the fastest-growing retailer in the United States last year, according to the annual list published by Stores magazine.

The “Hot 100 Retailers” ranks both public and privately held companies by percentage of U.S. sales growth between 2016 and 2017. Companies’ sales must total at least $300 million a year to be considered for inclusion.

It is compiled for Stores magazine, the publication of the National Retail Federation, by Kantar Consulting.

Coming in at No. 1 this year was U.K. clothing and accessories retailer Primark, which sells trendy, cheap clothing and accessories (think Forever 21, H&M, Zara, etc.) and opened its first U.S. stores in 2015. According to Kantar/Stores, the retailer’s annual sales grew 103 percent year-over-year to $489 million in 2017.

At No. 2 was Bass Pro Shops (94 percent sales growth to $7.3 billion), followed by home improvement and appliance retailer Build.com (47 percent sales growth to $1.3 billion), list mainstay Amazon.com (45 percent growth to $103 billion) and, at No. 5, online home goods retailer Wayfair (36 percent sales growth to $4.1 billion).

Commenting on the list, Stores Media Editor Susan Reda said strong consumer confidence and high job growth—two of the factors that led the NRF to raise its retail growth forecast for the year—have consumers spending more on home buying, home improvement and travel. This is, in part, why Build.com and Wayfair were in the top five.

The Hot 100 also represents a compendium of the retailers with the best strategies for growth in the omnichannel climate, said Bryan Gildenberg, Kantar’s chief knowledge officer.

“This year, the classic ‘four Ps’ of marketing have become the ‘four Ss’—the Hot 100 use speed, seamlessness, specialization and scale by acquisition as their core platforms of growth,” he said.

Rounding out the top 10 were the following.

6. Handbag retailer Tapestry (owns the Kate Spade, Stuart Weitzman and Coach brands, formerly Coach Inc.), 33 percent sales growth
7. PetSmart, 28 percent sales growth, buoyed by the acquisition of Chewy.com
8. Discount retailer Five Below, 28 percent sales growth
9. Ulta Salon, 28 percent sales growth
10. Pet Retail Brands, 27 percent sales growth

(While some retailers above show the exact same percentage of growth, percentages have been rounded. The rankings are based on exact percentages.)

The list also recognizes what it calls “sustained sizzlers,” retailers that have been on the list each year since it