Party City has revealed its ‘disappointing’ financial results for the third quarter (ending September 30, 2019) as well as total revenue for the fiscal month of October 2019.
Total revenues for the retailer saw sales of party supplies in Q3 falling by 3.2% from a year earlier, to $540.2 million. Total retail sales also decreased by 1.7% over the same period, principally due to headwinds from the helium shortage.
For fiscal October 2019 (the five-week period ended November 2, 2019), Party City reported a total revenue of $432.6 million, 7% below the same period last year.
It wasn’t all bad news though, with Q3 e-commerce sales increasing by 11.6% – or 14.9% when including click and collect orders.
“Our third quarter and October results were disappointing as many of the tailwinds that we expected failed to materialize,” said chief executive officer James M. Harrison. “The negative impact of helium shortages was felt across the business on both the top and bottom line… However, we are encouraged that our retail operations have approached a 100% in stock helium position since we began the fourth quarter, resulting in abating helium headwinds at retail and a bounce-back in the helium impacted categories.”
He continued: “While our Halloween performance was soft in stores, our digital business… showed strong growth. We are carefully analyzing our Halloween results and addressing the underlying issues and opportunities we have identified to improve the business going forward.”
Following these results, Party City has now adjusted its predicted 2019 revenue to be in the range of $2.35 billion – $2.38 billion, down from the $2.4 billion – $2.45 billion it had previously forecast.
