Their clothing and shoes (and jewelry! yes jewelry!) make us happy, but a little doom and gloom is hanging over Neiman Marcus after the retailer’s Tuesday morning earnings call this week. And if you are in the business of pushing luxury products, like million dollar homes or vacation homes, you pay attention. The take-aways: it’s been a challenging Q2, lowest oil prices in a decade definitely impacted Texas, home to Neiman’s largest volume stores, and more of their customers are turning to the internet to shop. Other factors that kept people from spending and challenged holidays sales were the skiddish stock market and strong U.S. dollar limiting international tourists in key store markets.
First of all, Neiman’s fiscal year ends in July. The company has been struggling. In October, Neimans announced layoffs for 500 employees, or 3 percent of its workforce.
Also in October, Neimans said it would delay the initial public offering it filed for in August, 2015.
For the all important 13 week period that ended Jan. 30, which includes the shop-rich cha-ching Christmas shopping season, Neimans experienced a 2.3 percent dip in revenue. Cyber Monday shopping on November 30, their highest volume day, was 9% higher than 2014. And when comparing fiscal 2015 to recent sales for the first half of this fiscal year, things are looking down. The company reported total revenues of $2.65 billion for the 26 weeks ended Jan. 30, a 2.1 percent decrease over fiscal 2015. Clearly, low oil prices are taking their toll on the luxury shopper’s paradise. (more…)
