As Amazon’s sales keep growing, the company is taking a hit on the income side. For their second quarter, sales rose 14 percent, to $4.65 billion, but operating income feel 27 percent at $159 million and net income fell 10 percent to $142 million. Among the hits to earnings were $51 million in their legal settlement with Toys R Us, and $30 million blamed on foreign exchange (but they had a $53 million non-cash gain from the sale of European dvd rental assets). While those sales grew overall, in the segment we all care about–media–the decelaration was dramatic. North American […]
Booksellers
Waterstone's Makes Year's Drop in Sales and Profits Sound Strong
Waterstone’s parent has updated the sparse sales statistics provided in late April with their “preliminary results” for the fiscal year. The basic numbers are the same (comp sales still fell 3.8 percent), though they add actual sales for the year–548.3 million pounds–and profits, at 10 million pounds down 38.5 percent from the previous year. The decline in earnings is attributed to “the sales decline, a 10 basis points reduction in gross margin due to the higher mix of online sales, and £2.0m of book hub start-up costs, partially offset by cost control measures, including bonus savings.” They also too “exceptional […]
Retail News: Comps Fall at WH Smith; Borders UK Back on the Block?: and More
WH Smith issued a brief trading update covering the first 13 weeks of the second half of the financial year” (e.g. their third quarter). At their high street stores, same-store sales fell 5 percent, while comps fell 2 percent at their travel stores.Company site Also in the UK, Borders UK has hired Clearwater Corporate Finance as an adviser. A Borders spokesperson claims the goal is to “seek out funding opportunities”; the Independent says more bluntly their job is “to conduct a potential sale of the 51-store business…although a sales memorandum has not yet been sent out.” The newspaper reported recently […]
Sales Drop 12 Percent at Borders
First quarter sales at Borders fell 12.1 percent overall at $641.5 million, with same-store sales down 13.5 percent at the superstores and down 5.5 percent at Waldenbooks. Superstores and Borders.com comprised $536.7 million of sales, with just $76.9 million coming from the 376 Waldens open at the end of the quarter. International sales, primarily from Paperchase, fell 14.9 percent to $27.9 million, suffering from the fall in the pound. The company lost $15.9 million or 27 cents per share on an operating basis–better than last year’s loss, and better than the 50-cent loss analysts expected–but the total loss was $86 […]
Books-A-Million Grows Sales, As Does Indigo
Overall sales actually rose at Books-a-Million in the first quarter, up $2.3 million to $118.2 million, while same-store sales slid 1.1 percent. Net income rose to $2.1 million, though much of the gain came from savings on stocks grants and compensation forfeited when ceo Sandra Cochran left the company. CEO Clyde Anderson says in the release, “Given the difficult economic environment, we’re pleased with our results for the quarter. While comparable sales numbers were down slightly, they represented an improvement over recent quarters, and our continued focus on cost control, gross margin and inventory management delivered improved earnings.” Release At […]
Comp Sales Fall 5.7% at BN, Which Raises Guidance After Smaller-than-Expected Loss
Barnes & Noble is good at beating the expectations of stock analysts and their own investor “guidance,” and they did it again for their first quarter, even as overall sales fell 4 percent to $1.105 billion. Same-store sales fell 5.7 percent for the quarter, a little better than their previous guidance, with overall store sales falling only 3.5 percent to $989 million. BN.com sales fell more, by 7 percent, at $93 million. The net loss from continuing operations of $2.1 million (or 4 cents a share) was better than the predicted loss of 10 cents to 20 cents a share. […]