Aided by strong Mother’s Day sales and its own cost-cutting efforts,
New York-based 1-800-Flowers.com reported a profit, albeit not much of one, for its fiscal
fourth quarter.
The news sent the company’s stock up at the opening, to
$13.75 after closing at $13.35 on Wednesday. It was sinking back in
mid-morning trading, down to $12.85.
Westbury, N.Y.-based 1-800-Flowers.com posted net income of $226,000 or
slightly above break-even on a per diluted share basis (2 cents per diluted
share) on record revenues of $132.3 million for its fiscal 2001 fourth
quarter ended July 1. That compared with a loss of $12.9 million or 20 cents
per share reported in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2000.
Combined online and telephonic revenues increased 9.1 percent to $124.3
million compared with $113.9 million in the prior year period.
It was the first profitable quarter for the company since June of 1998. For
the year 2000, the company lost $1.10 per share.
Interestingly, the company’s cost-cutting efforts have not involved layoffs,
a spokesman told atNewYork sister site InternetNews.com.
One of the metrics for this quarter shows in part how they did it: the
company’s cost to acquire a new customer declined to $16.88 during fiscal
2001 compared with $23.34 in fiscal 2000. And, approximately 36 percent of
combined online and telephonic revenues came from non-floral products,
showing that product diversification is paying off.
1-800-Flowers.com also said that it continued to reduce operating expenses,
specifically in the areas of marketing and selling, even as online traffic
grew 30 percent during the quarter.
Full-year fiscal 2001 revenues increased 16.5 percent to $442 million
compared with $380 million in fiscal 2000. For the year, the company posted a
loss of $41.3 million, compared to a year earlier loss of $66.8 million.
“Despite what continues to be a very challenging economy for retail
companies, during our fourth quarter we were able to achieve a solid rate of
revenue growth,” said Jim McCann, chairman and CEO of 1-800-Flowers.com.
“During the period, we reduced all of our operating expenses not only as a
percentage of sales, but also in absolute dollars…”
The company said it anticipates total revenue growth for fiscal 2002 to be
16-to-20 percent year over year. . This includes a contribution of
approximately $25 million from the Children’s Group, a closely held seller of
children’s gifts recently acquired by the Company.
The Children’s Group is a multi-channel direct marketer of children’s gifts
including natural material toys, games, arts and crafts and dolls that had
approximately $30 million in revenues during calendar-year 2000.
McCann said the company’s current fiscal first quarter is traditionally its
smallest in terms of revenue due to the lack of any major gift-giving
holidays during the summer months.
“Because it’s a slower period for us, it is the quarter in which we
traditionally implement technology upgrades and begin ramping up our
marketing efforts for the calendar fourth quarter holiday shopping period,”
he said. “As a result of this seasonality, for the current quarter we
anticipate an EBITDA loss of approximately $6 million to $7 million with a
return to positive EBITDA in quarters two, three and four and positive EPS in
quarters two and four.”
1-800-Flowers began its retail flower business in 1976, using toll-free phone
numbers and running a call center operation. In 1999 the company went dot-com
did an IPO.
