Fye’s "lifestyle" categories, which include tabletop games and merch, outperformed media, with a 4% decline in sales of lifestyle products vs. a 17% decline in sales in the media category. But as has been the case with other chains that have attempted to diversify into games and merch categories, fye is having trouble getting its mix right, with its gross margin declining vs. the previous year as a result of "aggressive actions to clear slow-moving merchandise."
Fye had an operating loss of $31.6 million vs. a profit of $8.4 million in the previous year period. Some $29.1 million of the loss came from an asset writedown, but even without that balance sheet adjustment, the chain generated a holiday quarter loss vs. a substantial profit the previous year.
This was the final quarter in Trans World’s fiscal year, and the fye results for the year were poor, with a 14.3% decline in sales and an 8.7% decline in same store sales. The segment generated an operating loss of $49.3 million for the year vs. a $1.9 million profit in the previous year. The store count declined from 284 stores to 260 during the fiscal year.
Trans World’s etailz e-commerce segment did better than the fye stores, but still produced a loss for both the quarter and the year. According to its consolidated results, Trans World lost $32.5 million in the quarter and $42.6 million for the year, vs. a profit of $8.3 million for the quarter and $3.2 million for the year in the comparable year-ago periods.
Efforts to change the mix in fye stores are still expected to produce better results in the future, according to management. "In the fye segment, efforts to change our merchandise point of view based on unique, relevant, collaborative and exclusive merchandise have shown promise but not consistency," Trans World CEO Mike Feurer said in a statement. "We will continue to build upon this promise as part of the ongoing reinvention of the fye brand throughout 2018."
