Higher Web Sales, Higher Earnings for Sportsman’s Guide
A higher level of Internet-related sales translated to greater first-quarter profit for The Sportsman’s Guide (Nasdaq: SGDE). For the three months ended March 31, the cataloger of outdoor gear netted $957,000 on sales of $43.7 million. For the first quarter of 2002, the South St. Paul, MN-based company posted earnings of $784,000 on sales of $41.5 million. About 34% of this quarter’s sales came from the Web, compared with 27% for the first quarter of last year.
1Q Net Loss Widens at Bluefly A 9% rise in first-quarter sales wasn’t enough to keep Bluefly (NasdaqSC: BFLY) from increasing its net loss. The online-only discount apparel marketer lost $1.8 million on sales of $8.3 million. For the first quarter of 2002, Bluefly lost $1.1 million on sales of $7.6 million.
The New York-based company blamed its red ink on the fact that it began the quarter with excess fall and winter merchandise. “To address this challenge, we made a conscious decision to reduce our margins in an effort to sell through as much fall and winter merchandise as possible,” CEO Ken Seiff said in a statement. “We made good progress in this regard, as evidenced by the 8% increase in net sales. Unfortunately, this progress came with a decrease in margin and gross profit.”