No Way: Lachapelle'S Revenue And Net Profit Declined In The First Quarter Of 2019, And 1887 Stores Were Closed

Today (April 30), Shanghai La Chapelle Clothing Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "La Chapelle") released its first quarter report of 2019. During the period, the revenue reached 2.372 billion yuan, down 6.94 percentage points year on year.

The net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company declined by 94.40% to 9.751 million yuan.

The explanation is mainly due to the lack of consumer confidence and the closure of a large number of offline direct stores.

According to the data of the National Bureau of Statistics, in the first quarter of 2019, the total retail sales of shoes, hats and clothing in China increased by 3.3% year on year, which is 5 percentage points lower than the total retail sales of consumer goods in the same period.

In the first quarter of 2019, the per capita consumption expenditure on clothing only increased by 1.7%, which was the lowest year-on-year growth among all categories of per capita consumption expenditure. The proportion of clothing consumption in per capita consumption expenditure fell from 8.6% in the first quarter of last year to 8.1%.

While accelerating the adjustment process of offline channels, closing loss and inefficient direct stores has a greater impact on La Chapelle's revenue during the period. From the brand side, in addition to the children's clothing 8eM, its subsidiaries include La Chapelle Puella、7 Modifier、 All brands, including men's wear, saw their revenue decline.

As of the end of March 2019, the number of stores and outlets in La Chapelle nationwide was 7653, a net decrease of 1887 compared with 9540 at the end of March 2018, with a decrease rate of 19.78%.

The same is true offline, and La Chapelle is also being interrogated online. Influenced by factors such as the adjustment of online platform operation strategy, the increase of traffic cost and the increase of sales of out of season products, during the period, the online operating revenue of La Chapelle decreased by 32.65% to 270 million yuan on a year-on-year basis, and the gross profit margin decreased by 21.49 percentage points on a year-on-year basis.

In terms of net profit, La Chapelle explained that the gross profit of sales in the first quarter decreased by 604 million yuan on a year-on-year basis, of which the gross profit decreased by 421 million yuan due to a 21.11% drop in operating revenue and 183 million yuan due to a 7.72% drop in average gross profit margin.

At the same time, the sales expenses decreased by 322 million yuan due to the decrease in sales. After considering the above factors, the impact on the current net profit of La Chapelle was about 211 million yuan.

In this view, what La Chapelle urgently needs to do is not only to adjust offline stores, but also to work hard on the online and offline omni channel operation capability.