Express, the fashion retailer based in the US, saw a huge fall in its net sales during the fourth quarter.
The net sales during the quarter went down by 29 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) to clock US $ 43.3 million. Despite significant fall, the drop was better than analysts’ prediction of 37 per cent fall.
In a statement released to media, the retailer said that its comp sales – which includes e-commerce and store sales – dipped by 28 per cent during the period.
The gross margin in the fourth quarter too shrunk to 16.6 per cent of sales. It was 27 per cent during the same quarter in the previous year.
What’s noteworthy is that Y-o-Y EBITDA loss narrowed down to US $ 45 million from US $ 168.7 million.
The Y-o-Y operating loss and net loss too went down drastically to US $ 62.7 million (from US $ 189.9 million) and US $ 53.3 million (from US $ 141.6 million), respectively.
The adjusted net loss in Q4 was US $ 43.1 million. This excluded factors like federal pandemic tax relief.
Much before pandemic started, Express had been closing down stores and axing workers owing to its not-so-good performance and in 2020 it further got worsened resulting in the retailer laying off 10 per cent of its corporate workforce.
However, the retailer has been putting efforts like bringing improvements in its business operations, reinventing its products and reducing its cost base. And this is the reason Express is upbeat about 2021 and expects significant gross margin improvement this year.
Express is mainly known for its womenswear and menswear collections and generated revenue of US $ 2.019 billion in 2019.
