Plano, Texas – On the upside, the financial foundation remains solid. However, JCPenney’s first quarter loss deepened and sales posted another decline.
Sales for the quarter ended May 4 fell nearly 9% to $1.368 billion. In JCPenney’s Q1 filing with the SEC, the company noted that economic pressure was weighing on middle income shoppers. The exception to the trend at Penney’s was the women’s segment, where apparel, handbags and shoes all exceeded plan.
The relaunch of the retailer’s rewards program in late April – along with other marketing efforts – led to an improvement in organic brand search volume on Google, generating double-digit increases from the prior year’s Q1 in reward memberships, the company reported.
Overall gross profit rates were flat, as were SG&A expenses. Inventory was down 9% year-over-year.
Net loss widened to $63 million from a net loss of $1 million.
JCPenney ended the quarter with approximately $1.6 billion in liquidity and less than $500 million of outstanding long-term debt. It had no outstanding borrowings on its line of credit at the end of the period.
