Neiman Marcus is the latest department store that seems to be finding its footing amid a challenging retail climate.
On Wednesday, the group reported fiscal third-quarter earnings, posting a 4.8 percent revenue increase year over year to $1.17 billion, marking its third straight quarter of revenue growth.
Comparable sales were also up by 6 percent, which CEO Geoffroy van Raemdonck, who joined the company in February after longtime CEO Karen Katz retired from the top job, pointed to as evidence of the retailer’s strong outlook.
“Our strategy is working, so we will continue to be laser-focused on areas that set us apart from competitors — innovation that enhances the customer experience, a strong high-performance culture and new partnerships with both emerging and industry-leading luxury brands,” said van Raemdonck. “Our customers trust us to be a curator of trends today and tomorrow, and we are delivering for them.”
Online sales in particular were a highlight (as they were for Nordstrom last month), increasing 17.1 percent to $416 million, representing more than 35 percent of overall sales.
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Traffic to its websites, including Neimanmarcus.com, Bergdorfgoodman.com, Mytheresa.com, and Lastcall.com, was up 15 percent, and van Raemdonck said the sites will be updated this year.
Even the revenue boost couldn’t make up for the company’s hefty interest payments on its debt load however, and it posted a net loss of $19.9 million for the quarter, slightly better than its a net loss of $24.9 million for the fiscal third quarter 2017.
Year-to-date adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization were $421 million, compared with $385.6 million for the same period in the prior year.
On the earnings call, executives also announced that the company will be closing an additional three Last Call stores, reducing its total to 24. Its experiential concept, Idea Factory, will begin its rollout this month at five Neiman Marcus locations.
