Traffic has slumped for the roughly 67% of Tilly’s Inc. stores that have reopened, as uncertainty lingers for the brick-and-mortar outlook, the retailer said Wednesday.
The Irvine-based company said 160 of its 239 stores have reopened as states’ COVID-19 restrictions ease. The early read so far for the current quarter, ending Aug. 1, shows store traffic down 34% from a year ago. Same-store sales, however, are up 1.2% with 78 stores comping positive and 73 seeing a downward trend in comparable sales.
Tilly’s declined to provide guidance for the current quarter citing uncertainty around its stores’ performance and how quickly the rest of its doors can be opened.
The update also came with a recap of Tilly’s first-quarter results for the period ended May 2.
“So much remains unpredictable at this time, but we are thankful that we have recently been able to bring some of our people back to work with the reopening of 160 of our stores thus far,” Tilly’s President and CEO Ed Thomas said in a statement.
Net sales for the quarter fell nearly 41% from the year-ago period to $77.3 million, missing analyst expectations of $78.3 million.
The retailer fell into the red in the quarter swinging to a net loss of $17.4 million, versus a profit of $700,000 a year earlier. Analysts on average expected a loss of $10.6 million.
Tilly’s shares were trading up 1.6% in after-hours trading Wednesday to a market cap of $187.3 million.
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