Neiman Marcus Group suffered a 5.4% drop in direct marketing revenue in July, compared with the same month last year.
The DALLAS-based retailer attributed the decline to a catalog shift and a strong month last year.
Total company revenues dropped by 2.8% to $164.9 million, compared with the same four-week period in 2000. The figures reflect sales through July 28.
Comparable revenues dropped to $163.8 million, compared with $169.7 million last year.
The July slump, which was aggravated by deeper markdowns, is expected to hurt the company’s fourth-quarter and full-year earnings.
"We took aggressive markdowns to clear merchandise as business softened in the quarter," said CEO Burton M. Tansky in a statement.
Tansky added that Neiman Marcus has "planned the first quarter very conservatively as we cycle against last year[s double-digit comparable revenue increase."
