Lands’ End, Inc., Dodgeville, WI, had 1998 holiday season sales of $412 million, up 8.5% from holiday season sales of $380 million in 1997. The company defines the holiday season as the eight weeks immediately proceeding Christmas.
The 1998 holiday period includes a non-recurring charge of $11.1 million. This charge includes costs associated with severance payments due to organizational restructuring, liquidation of the Willis & Geiger division, closing of three outlet stores and discontinuance of the MontBell business.
Net income for the eight-week period just ended was $25.1 million, down 36% from the $39.0 million earned in 1997.
The increase in sales during the holiday period was mainly due to additional catalogs and pages mailed and price reductions. The growth in sales came primarily from the specialty businesses, as well as from foreign-based operations. Sales from the core business, represented by the regular monthly and prospecting catalogs were flat. During the eight weeks just ended, the number of pages mailed in the U.S. was higher than in the prior year’s holiday period, which lowered productivity, or sales per page.
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