B&N Reports Nook Revenues Down 19% in Second Quarter
Barnes & Noble revealed on Tuesday that its deck shuffling efforts have so far not helped turn the company around. Revenues were down 4% for the quarter ending 29 October, and Nook revenues declined 19% to $35 million.
Riggio stuck to the excuse du jour of blaming the decline on the election: “While we are pleased to have improved our performance due to expense reductions, we did experience sluggish sales, which we believe are directly related to the election cycle,” said Len Riggio, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Barnes & Noble, Inc. "With the election behind us, we hope and expect sales will improve over the holidays."
As I pointed out in September, that is simply nonsense. A bunch of other retailers reported revenues up, not down.
But hey, it sounds good.
Total sales for the second quarter were $858.5 million, declining 4.0% as compared to the prior year. Retail sales, which include Barnes & Noble stores and BN.com, declined 3.5% to $830.7 million for the quarter. Comparable store sales declined 3.2% on lower store traffic, which was partly offset by the release of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. NOOK® sales, which include digital content, devices and accessories, declined 19.4% to $35.0 million for the quarter.
The consolidated second quarter net loss was $20.4 million, or $0.29 per share, as compared to the prior year loss from continuing operations of $27.2 million, or $0.36 per share. For the quarter, Retail and NOOK incurred operating losses of $21.1 million and $8.2 million, respectively, for a total operating loss of $29.3 million.
Consolidated second quarter EBITDA was $0.7 million, a $21.2 million improvement versus the prior year. NOOK EBITDA losses of $2.7 million improved $18.5 million over the prior year on continued cost rationalization efforts. Retail EBITDA increased $2.7 million to $3.5 million, as lower severance charges offset the sales decrease.
image by MikeKalasnik
Comments
Syn November 22, 2016 um 12:53 pm
Looks like even people giving them pity sales are seeing the light and jumping ship. B&N should not be in this position. Out of anyone, they should be a strong number two to Amazon in books. But you have Amazon on the right with great customer policies and Reps able to actually made decisions to keep the customer happy. Then you have B&N on the left, who says screw the customer and their reps have no power.
They have no one to blame but themselves. It is to bad they didn’t see the big picture long term. Their anti-consumer policies just isn’t good business. And thats only the start of whats wrong with them. Their is so much more. Their website, downloading books, 3 weeks to a month to get a refund. I could go on and on.
Deborah Pesa November 22, 2016 um 1:10 pm
I used to shop regularly at B&N. Had a membership and everything. I started to pull away when the stores started to become Nook stores, rather than bookstores. Oh, and no member discount on Nook or Nook-related items. Dropped the membership. Started buying more e-books on the Kindle platform and since I was there, also ordering paper books from Amazon. For the last 5 or more years I’ve spent very little in B&N, mostly magazines. Just went into a store last week with a list of about 10 books that were recent award nominees & winners that I might have purchased. They didn’t have a single one of them in stock. But the still have 25% of the floor space dedicated to Nook and another 30% or more dedicated to the cafe and non-book gifts. So why should I go back?
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