First-quarter sales for The Yankee Candle Co. decreased 10.8%, to $125.7 million. For the period ended April 4, Yankee Candle incurred a net loss of $11.5 million, compared to a net loss of $7.9 million in the first quarter last year.
The company’s wholesale business fell 18.7%, to $55.3 million, while retail same-store sales decreased 9.8%. Retail sales slipped 3.4%, to $70.4 million. The consumer direct business decreased 15.4%.
The economy continued to pressure customer traffic and consumer spending behavior, said chairman/CEO Craig Rydin said in a release. “Our wholesale customers continued to constrain their open-to-buy, as they reduced inventories.”
What’s more Rydin said, “We continue to have an unfavorable wholesale match-up due to the bankruptcy of Linens ‘n Things. While the cumulative effect of these conditions impacted our business as expected, we did exceed our internal adjusted EBITDA projections in the first quarter of 2009.”