Home appliance and consumer electronics chain retailer hhgregg Appliances Inc., No. 255 in the Internet Retailer 2015 Top 500 Guide, reported a 9.8% decrease in net sales for the fourth quarter but a healthy increase in web sales. For the quarter ended March 31 the retailer reported:
- Net sales decreased 9.8% to $485.6 million from $538.3 million during Q4 last year.
- Web sales grew 47% during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2015 and represented about 4% of total sales for the quarter.
- The retailer does not break out web sales specifically, but Internet Retailer calculates that fourth quarter web sales grew 47% to about $19.4 million from $13.2 million during the same period last year.
- Comparable-store sales decreased 10% compared with a 9.9% drop in Q4 last year.
- A net loss of $25.2 million compared with a net loss of $7.2 million during the same period last year.
Dennis May, hhgregg’s president and CEO, said the company’s Q4 results were “challenging,” but he was pleased with the company’s progress in e-commerce, according to a transcript of hhgregg’s Q4 earnings conference call provided by Seeking Alpha. “We continue to be aggressive on enhancing our e-commerce capabilities. During the quarter, our comparable sales of our e-commerce platform increased by 47%, and represented approximately 4% of our total business during the quarter,” May said. “We expect, annually, that the e-commerce category will represent approximately 7% of our total business.”
May also said that as e-commerce continues to grow the company plans invest more in digital advertising and further reduce its spending on print ads in hopes of competing more effectively in certain product categories online, especially TVs. “I think as we make this pivot to being a better digital company, making digital investments it’s going to allow us to compete more effectively,” May said. “We had a 47% growth in e-comm last quarter that was on top of the 60% the previous quarter, but we still are playing catch-up there, and I think the investment that we’re making around e-commerce is going to allow us to also compete in the TV category more effectively.”
For the fiscal year ended March 31, hhgregg reported:
- Net sales decreased 9.0% to $2.13 billion from $2.34 billion in fiscal 2014.
- Comparable-store sales decreased 9.2% compared with a 7.3% drop last year.
- A net loss of $132.7 million compared with net income of $228,000 in 2014.