BloomNet wire service, the corporate sales and business-to-business unit of 1-800-Flowers.com Inc., had modest sales declines for the 2016 fiscal year and fourth quarter. Company executives attributed the sales decreases to shortfalls compared with a strong fourth quarter in 2015.
“We had very, very strong fourth quarter results last year as we introduced some new fee programs to the network,” chief financial officer Bill Shea told analysts on the company’s recent year-end earnings call. While fiscal 2016 BloomNet sales were flat, “we’re looking to introduce new initiatives to stimulate growth for BloomNet. BloomNet has always been very good at delivering its bottom line, and will continue its contribution margin, but we do have some initiatives in place to help stimulate some top line growth,” Shea told analysts, according to a call transcript from Seeking Alpha.
New products and services for florist and corporate customers planned for fiscal 2017 include a sympathy product line of flower arrangements and gourmet gift baskets through a July agreement with Service Corp. International, a provider of funeral and cemetery services, to launch an online sympathy gift program; new website hosting and marketing programs, including “Google-esque banner type advertising”; and enhancements to the BloomNet cloud-based store management technology platform, president and CEO Chris McCann told analysts. He did not elaborate on the enhancements.
BloomNet sales for the fiscal 2016 year ended July 3 were $85.5 million, down 0.6% from $86.0 million in fiscal 2015. Fourth quarter revenue for BloomNet declined 5.2% to $21.7 million from $22.9 million.
For the fiscal year ended July 3, 1-800-Flowers, No. 153 in theB2B E-Commerce 300, reported:
- E-commerce sales of $882.8 million, up 3.9% from $849.9 million compared with the same period a year ago.
- Total sales of $1.173 billion, up 4.5% from $1.122 billion.
- Consumer floral sales of $418.5 million, a 0.9% decrease from $422.2 million.
- Gourmet food and gift baskets sales of $670.5 million, up 9.2% from $614.0 million.
- Net income of $35.9 million, up 85.1% compared with $19.4 million.
For fiscal Q4 2016 ended July 3, 1-800-Flowers reported:
- E-commerce sales of $186.4 million, up 4.3% from $178.8 million in Q4 of fiscal 2015.
- Total sales of $234.4 million, up 2.7% from $228.3 million.
- Consumer floral sales of $137.5 million, up 4.6% from $131.5 million.
- Gourmet food and gift baskets sales of $75.4 million, up 1.9% from $74.0 million.
- Net loss of $11.1 million compared with a loss of $10.8 million.
1-800-Flowers is No. 57 in the Internet Retailer 2016 Top 500 Guide.
Sign up for a free subscription to B2BecNews, a twice-weekly newsletter that covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B e-commerce industry. B2BecNews is published by Vertical Web Media LLC, which also publishes the monthly business magazine Internet Retailer. Follow Bill Briggs on Twitter @BBriggsB2B.
Follow us on LinkedIn and be the first to know when B2BecNews publishes new content.
Favorite