Vince reports boost in direct-to-consumer sales over holidays, updates annual outlook

By

Robin Driver

Published
Jan 13, 2020

Contemporary fashion group Vince Holding Corp. announced solid growth in its direct-to-consumer sales during the 2019 holiday period on Monday and updated its full-year guidance to take into account the newly acquired Rebecca Taylor and Parker brands.

 
For the nine-week period ended January 4, 2020, direct-to-consumer segment sales at the New York-based company’s namesake Vince brand increased 11% year over year.
 
This growth was driven by a rise in comparable sales of around 6%, as well as revenues from the five new stores that have been opened since the end of the same period in the previous year, and the launch of the Vince Unfold subscription business at the end of 2018.

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According to Vince, the Rebecca Taylor and Parker brands, which the company acquired in November 2019, had a minimal effect on its direct-to-consumer sales growth.
 
Vince CEO Brendan Hoffman was also keen to point out an increase of over 200 basis points in the gross margin of the company’s direct-to-consumer business, thanks to reduced promotional activities and increased full-price sales.
 
In the wholesale channel, the company saw particularly strong progress at its two department store partners, where sales of the Vince brand increased over 30%.
 
Having appointed Steven Cateron as creative director of the new brands in November, Hoffman also outlined the company’s plans for Rebecca Taylor and Parker moving forward.
 
First of all, the fashion group will be looking to boost Rebecca Taylor’s direct-to-consumer channel by investing in new brick-and-mortar and e-commerce initiatives, while also developing the brand’s RNTD rental business.
 
Plans also include the expansion of apparel product classifications at both brands through the leveraging of Vince’s core competences, accelerating the labels’ international distribution, and margin expansion, to be achieved through effective scaling and the creation of operational efficiencies.
 
“We believe that we are uniquely positioned to drive meaningful profitable growth for the Rebecca Taylor and Parker brands,” explained Hoffman in a release. “As we evaluated the Rebecca Taylor brand in particular, we saw an opportunity to acquire this company during a downturn in fiscal 2019 and leverage the same strategies that led to significantly improved financial performance at the Vince brand to reinvigorate profitable growth.”
 
In light of these plans, Vince has made some changes to its full-year financial guidance. The company now expects to report annual net sales of between $365 million and $378 million, including $70 million to $73 million provided by the newly acquired brands.

The group’s diluted loss per share is predicted to be in the range of $0.20 to $0.50.