Casual Male Filings Reveal Catalog Circ Changes
Casual Male, which has announced cutbacks in its catalog circulation as it focuses on current customers, had already trimmed its press run from 2007’s levels, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
During its 2007 fiscal year, the company issued 19 editions of its Casual Male XL catalog, amounting to 11.2 million copies. In 2008, this dropped to 18 editions, and 8.8 million copies. Within Canada, it mailed out 5 editions (500,000 catalogs) during 2008, a significant drop from the 14 editions, for a total of 1.3 million books, it sent out in 2007.
Casual Male XL also appeared in 4 editions of the Sears Canada catalog, with a circulation of 500,000 catalogs depending on the edition. In 2007, its wares appeared in 3 editions, but these had a total circulation of between 3-4 million, depending on the edition.
Circulation within its B&T Factory Direct “value-oriented” line increased from 2007’s level. A year ago, this line mailed 7 editions, with a total of 1.5 million books sent out. In 2008, this jumped to 9 editions, and a total circulation of 2.3 million catalogs.
Rochester Clothing, the company’s luxury line, mailed out 20 editions, one more than the 19 it printed in 2007. But despite this increase total circulation dropped from 4.9 million a year ago to 3.7 million.
Its lifestyle products line, Living XL, sent out 7 editions of its catalog (4.6 million circulation), up from the 6 editions and 4.2 million catalogs sent out a year ago.
The company is revamping its loyalty program. In 2007, this program was used by 1.3 million customers, who spent an average of 15% more than its non-loyalty customers. Casual Male did not give statistics for 2008, but it did reveal that it is increasing the threshold under which rewards are earned, but said that the value of the earned awards, as a percentage of the points, would be greater.
It also said points would reset with each calendar year, and that the redemption periods were being reduced from five months to three months.
Earlier this month, Casual Male reported it had generated fourth-quarter sales of $123.1 million, down from $133.9 million a year ago. The company’s net loss for the quarter was $108 million, compared with $638,000 in net income a year ago. For the entirety of 2008, Casual Male pulled in $444.2 million, down from $464.1 million during 2007. The company’s net loss for the year was $109.3 million, compared with $414,000 in net income during 2007. The quarter and the year ended on Jan. 31. During both the fourth quarter and the year, the company took an impairment charge of $71.4 million.
The Snarker’s Take: There’s some interesting language in Casual Male’s boilerplate description of its business, which offers clothing to gentlemen of a portly nature: “According to the Center for Disease Control, the rate of obesity for the under-30 age group is growing faster than for any other segment of the population. These statistics suggest that there is a significant gap between the market share of the big & tall apparel market and the overall percentage of the population classified as overweight…We estimate that our current market share is approximately 7.7% and believe that we have the potential to reach 12% and beyond.” Casual Male is doubtless one of the only catalog/retail marketers to cite an adverse Center for Disease Control trend as a positive for its future marketing prospects.
