Dive Brief:

• A massive fire at Gap, Inc.'s Fishkill, NY distribution center wreaked havoc on the apparel retailer's October and third quarter sales results.

• Same-store sales across the organization fell 1% last month, with 3 percentage points of the decline attributable to the August fire, Gap said Monday.

• Gap reported Q3 earnings excluding items of 59 cents to 60 cents per share as net sales fell to $3.8 billion from $3.86 billion in the year-ago quarter. Thomson Reuters analysts expected 53 cents per share on revenue of $3.73 billion. 

Dive Insight:

Old Navy was again Gap Inc.'s salvation in the third quarter, with a same-store sales increase of 3% compared to a 4% rise last year. Gap’s Q3 same-store sales fell 8%, compared to a 4% decline a year ago, and Banana Republic’s Q3 same-store sales also slipped 8%, compared to a 12% drop a year ago.

October same-store sales rose 3% at Old Navy, compared to a 2% rise in October 2015, with the fire hitting results by one percentage point, missing an expectation from Retail Metrics for a 4.1% increase. October same-store sales at Gap’s flagship brand fell 7%, including an estimated negative impact fire of some 5 percentage points, compared to its October decrease of 4% last year. October same-store sales at Banana fell 4%, with the fire taking a toll of 4 percentage points, compared to a 15% slide in October 2015. Those results were in line with Retail Metrics' expectations, according to a note emailed to Retail Dive.

Gap's struggle to gain any traction in its turnaround continues to vex CEO Art Peck: In September, he blamed a dearth of fashion trends for leaving consumers disinterested in accumulating new clothes and retailers at a loss for what to offer. Earlier this month Gap Inc. said that executive vice president and chief financial officer Sabrina Simmons will leave the company at the end of the 2016 fiscal year. In a terse statement Monday, Simmons hailed Old Navy as the company’s lone bright spot: “As we close out the quarter, we are pleased to see a continued positive customer response to our Old Navy product collections,” she said.

But Gap also pointed to healthier margins as “significantly higher than previously expected,” helping offset lost sales and increased logistics costs resulting from the warehouse fire. Retail analyst Ken Perkins, CEO of Retail Metrics, in a note released in late October, said that Gap “looked to be less promotional this month than it has been in some time.”