DSW Inc.’s 483 stores and those stores’ employees play a pivotal role in helping the multichannel shoe retailer fulfill online orders.
Interim chief financial officer Jared Poff told analysts on DSW’s Q2 2016 earnings call online sales grew 21% year-over-year during the quarter, declining to specify a dollar figure or what percentage of overall sales online accounts for. DSW is No. 133 in the 2016 Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide.
DSW CEO Roger Rawlins told analysts on the call that the retailer’s store locations have played a crucial role in the company’s online sales growth.
“When you talk to our digital team about how we play, they think of themselves as a pure-play,” Rawlins said on the call, according to a transcript from Seeking Alpha. “It just so happens the warehouses that we’re using to fulfill the demand that they’re creating in the digital space happen to have our sales associates that are there to service our customer to do buy online pick-up (in store), buy online ship to store, whatever that might be. So we’re growing digital by leveraging the tools that we’ve built over the past few years.”
DSW began fulfilling some online orders from stores—which the company calls warehouses—in 2013, using omnichannel order management software from eBay Enterprise, which now does business as Radial. It added buy online, pickup in store capabilities last year. DSW said earlier this year that 30% of online orders were fulfilled from stores in the fourth quarter.
Rawlins added that the company is planning on rolling out a number of improvements to its online store later this year, declining to provide further specifics.
For the fiscal second quarter ended July 30, DSW reported:
- Net sales of $658.9 million, up 5.1% from $627.0 million last year.
- A year-over-year comparable sales decline of 1.2%.
- Net income of $25.0 million, down 33.5% from $37.6 million last year.
For the first six months of 2016, DSW reported:
- Net sales of $1.34 billion, up 4.7% from $1.28 billion last year.
- A year-over-year comparable sales decline of 1.4%.
- Net income of $55.0 million, down 35.3% from $85.0 million last year.