Moss Bros has warned over profits after hot summer weather and the World Cup "distraction" pushed the menswear retailer to a half-year loss.
Earnings show the retailer swung to a pre-tax loss of £1.7 million for the six months to July 28, having posted a profit of £3.9 million in the same period last year.
The retailer said it was knocked by £1.2 million in store impairments, in light of a "small number of underperforming stores", and took a further £800,000 hit amid "reorganisation and employee-related costs".
It also suffered a 3.3% drop in total group revenue excluding VAT to £64.5 million, while like-for-like retail sales, including e-commerce, were down 6.9%.
Moss Bros shares plunged nearly 14%.
Moss Bros chief executive Brian Brick said trading performance over the period "was one of the most volatile for many years" - a result he blamed on extreme weather conditions and the World Cup football tournament.
He said: "We initially saw sales performance recover well following our previously highlighted early season stock shortages, and sales were generally ahead of expectation.
"This came to an abrupt end when high street footfall dropped dramatically, impacted by the protracted and unplanned period of extremely hot weather and the widespread distraction of England's success in the World Cup.
"Although all retailers were impacted in some way, menswear was specifically impacted negatively by the combination and longevity of these two external factors."
Mr Brick said those effects were compounded by distressed discounting by competitors, as Moss Bros held firm on pricing.
Customer footfall was down by an average of 7% year-on-year, while its worst affected stores saw a 14% drop.
Moss Bros estimates that it was negatively affected by around £2.7 million of retail store sales, which would have delivered around £1.4 million in gross profit.
It said online shopping and distribution via third party marketplaces were less affected and "continued to achieve positive momentum".
Mr Brick went on to say that "early response" to the autumn and winter ranges has been "strong", but that Moss Bros "remain acutely aware that the highly competitive retail landscape is set to continue, alongside an unpredictable economic back-drop and increasing cost headwinds".
He added: "We have reviewed our expectations for the second half of the year despite having a number of key trading weeks still ahead of us, and whilst short-term cost-cutting would make us more certain of mitigating the footfall-related gross profit shortfall and therefore hitting the market's expectations, we feel it would be detrimental to the long-term health of the business.
"As such, we have taken the decision to continue to invest and to deliver profit lower than expectations."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here