Women’s apparel company and NYSE listed, ‘Ann Inc’, which manages Ann Taylor and Loft brands, cut its sales outlook for the third and fourth fiscal quarters of 2014, as well as the full fiscal year.
Struggling with weak traffic and a high promotional environment, Ann Inc, said it now expects lower-than-anticipated sales and gross margin rate performance in the remaining part of the fiscal year.
Total net sales for the fiscal third quarter of 2014 are now expected to be $647 million, reflecting a comparable sales decline of 4.3 per cent.
While, for the fourth fiscal quarter of 2014, it has forecast net sales totalling to $630 million, which is a comparable sales decline in low-single digits.
For the full fiscal year 2014, Ann expects net sales of $2.516 billion, also down in low-single digit comparable sales.
In the third fiscal quarter, total comparable sales decreased 6.6 per cent at the Ann Taylor brand, from a 4.8 per cent and 10.4 per cent decline at Ann Taylor and Ann Taylor Factory channel, respectively.
At Loft, total comparable sales fell 2.9 per cent in the third fiscal quarter, reflecting decreases of 3.3 per cent at Loft and 1.0 per cent in the Loft Outlet channel.
Gross margin rate is now expected to be 52.6 per cent, 46.5 per cent and 51.2 per cent in the third and fourth fiscal quarters and the full fiscal year, respectively.
