Summer has been tough for Quiz, but e-sales carry it through

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Sep 4, 2019

Quiz Clothing has been having a tough time of late and when the company issued a trading update on Wednesday it said that “the challenging trading conditions reported at the time of the group's announcement on 11 June have persisted over the summer months.”

But while the overall environment doesn't seem to have eased, the company did say that group revenues during the financial year to date are “broadly in line with the same period last year” after adjusting for the unprofitable revenue streams that have been terminated during the year.

That may not exactly be good news, but at least it seems that things aren't getting too much worse on the sales front. Yet as far as footfall is concerned, the situation does seem to have deteriorated. “Consistent with the widely reported conditions on the UK high street, the business has experienced a reduction in store footfall during the period,” it said. This is compared to the previous year “when the group experienced particularly strong demand.”

As usual with many fashion and retail businesses these days, it's the internet that's carrying it through and the company said on Wednesday that its “performance has continued to benefit from sales growth through Quiz’s own websites.”

The company is staying reasonably upbeat in the circumstances and added that it believes it “can return to sustainable profitable growth in the medium term.”

It's a shame it didn't give any specific figures and it looks like we'll have to wait until its next scheduled update (for the half year to September 30) that’s due on October 11, to get more details.