Online pet goods retailer Chewy reported a 40.5% increase in sales for its third fiscal quarter ended Nov. 2, and revised its guidance to 40% growth for the full fiscal year, which ends in February, from 38% to 39%.
Chewy is raising its outlook as sales per customer continue to rise. This quarter, the average customer spent 11% more with the retailer, according to CEO Sumit Singh in a call with investors transcribed by Seeking Alpha. Last quarter, customers increased spending 10%.
Recurring shipments through Chewy’s Autoship program have also increased, and generated 70.4% of Chewy’s third quarter revenue. The total number of customers for the quarter increased by 3.1 million people to 12.7 million.
Sales for the quarter hit $1.23 billion, compared with $875.6 million the same quarter last year. For the year so far, sales increased 43.0% to $3.49 billion from $2.44 billion the year before. The quarter’s losses shrank slightly to $79.0 million from $78.6 million, and improved 5.0% for the year so far to $191.4 million from $201.5 million.
Pharmacy and private-label products helped boost its profit margin, which was 23.7%, up from 19.6% a year earlier. Revenue from in-house brands grew 60% and represented a “double-digit” portion of revenue in “frozen foods, jerky treats and natural bones and chews,” Singh said.
Chewy generates the majority of ecommerce sales for PetSmart Inc., No. 26 in the 2019 Digital Commerce 360 Top 1000, which is Chewy’s majority stakeholder.
In other earnings news:
- Apparel brand American Eagle Outfitters Inc. (No. 70) reported ecommerce sales reached nearly 28% of overall revenue, or about $298.6 million for its third fiscal quarter ended Nov. 2, according to chief financial officer Bob Madore on an analyst call. Ecommerce share last year was 100 basis points lower, or 27% of overall revenue, Madore said. This means ecommerce grew about 10.2%. Its intimate apparel brand Aerie generated 40% of revenue from ecommerce for the quarter, but it did not disclose its exact brand sales.
- Canadian department store chain Hudson’s Bay Co. (No. 41) grew ecommerce sales 15% for the third fiscal quarter ended Nov. 2. Online sales at its off-price brand Saks OFF 5TH helped push the brand to 4.9% overall revenue growth.
- Online mattress retailer Casper (No. 131) made a round of staff cuts this week, according to a source who spoke with Bloomberg. The top online mattress brand dismissed around 30 employees as part of a reorganization associated with its evolution into a so-called multi-channel business, said one of the people, who requested anonymity because the matter is private. A representative for the company declined to comment. The cuts come as Casper—which was valued at $1.1 billion in its most recent private funding round—prepares for a U.S. initial public offering that could occur as soon as this year or the first half of 2020, Bloomberg News reported in October.
Bloomberg contributed to this report.
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