First-quarter sales for multititle mailer 1-800-Flowers.com dropped 20%, to $108.3 million, compared to $135.4 million for the same period last year. Company officials said in a release that the decline in year-over-year sales was due to lower wholesale order volume in its DesignPac Gifts division, combined with lower demand in the consumer floral business.
It also doesn’t help that fiscal first quarter is typically 1-800-Flowers.com’s lowest in terms of revenue, due to the lack of gifting occasions during the summer months. Net loss for the quarter was $7.2 million, compared to net loss of $5.3 million in the first quarter last year.
The company in August announced that it has divested its Home and Children’s Gifts business segment. The company aims to sell the Home and Children’s Gifts category titles, which include Plow & Hearth; HearthSong; Magic Cabin; Wind and Weather; and Problem Solvers. First-quarter revenue in the Home and Children’s Gift segment fell 23%, to $17.4 million, from $22.6 million.
1-800-Flowers.com CEO Jim McCann said in a statement: “While we are guardedly optimistic regarding improvements in the overall economic climate, we believe consumers will continue to be cautious in their discretionary spending during the upcoming holiday period. We remain focused on leveraging our business platform to reduce operating expenses while concurrently improving our gross profit margin through our value-priced product collections, reduced promotional pricing and improved operating efficiencies.”