Covid-19 'catastrophic', Briscoes says as it reveals sales drop
Friday, 1 May 2020
Covid-19 has been catastrophic for retailers, says Briscoes managing director Rod Duke.
Briscoe Group, covering Briscoes, Rebel Sport and Living & Giving, has reported an almost 36 per cent dip in first-quarter sales.
“The catastrophic nature of the complete absence of revenue was quite devastating on business and our people,” Duke said.
“We were hit with the realisation that revenue was suddenly turned off.”
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The unaudited results for the first quarter showed revenue of $97 million, 35.6 per cent lower than the $150.6m during the same period last year.
Results prior to the March 25 lockdown had been positive, with group sales growing by 4.2 per cent over the same time last year.
Initially, all the stores in the group shut down during alert level 4.
Briscoes was eventually allowed to sell some products as essential items.
Duke said the essential sales had been more for customers than a revenue-generating exercise.
“Online for us generates maybe 10 per cent of our sales. The essential items were only 2 or 3 per cent of that,” Duke said.
However, the online-only experience has sharpened the company's focus on developing a stronger digital presence.
“We are learning to do business in a different way,” Duke said.
“I think what lockdown and the opening of a full online store has shown is there are aspects of doing business online that are quite different.”
Most of the changes would be in the back-end of processing orders more efficiently, Duke said.
As managing director of Briscoe Group, Duke is foregoing his salary until at least July in response to the ongoing spread of the coronavirus.
Duke owns 77 per cent of the retail giant and was paid $978,000 last year.
Hamilton Hindin Greene investment adviser Jeremy Simpson said the results had been in line with general expectations for retail during this period.
“The only retailers that are going to do well are the likes of supermarkets. Even pharmacies were struggling to a certain extent to cover the costs they are incurring to battle Covid-19,” Simpson said.
'All the retailers will be struggling significantly, and those that didn't have an online presence will be working as hard and fast as they can to get their contactless delivery and try and innovate their way around this as soon as possible.'