Cabela’s, a retailer and direct marketer of hunting, fishing, camping, and related outdoor merchandise said it recorded a total income decreased 16.7% to USD19.1 million compared to USD22.9 million in the year ago quarter.
For the quarter, a total revenue decreased 3.4% to USD834.9 million, revenue from retail store sales decreased 3.9% to USD542.0 million, Internet and catalog sales decreased 12.6% to USD136.1 million, and Financial Services revenue increased 6.5% to USD150.0 million. For the quarter, U.S. comparable store sales decreased 9.1% and consolidated comparable store sales decreased 8.9%.
According to the Sidney based company, the increase in revenue in the financial service sector was primarily driven by increases in interest and fee income, which was largely offset by increases in the provision for loan losses as well as interest expense.
“While we were disappointed with our merchandise sales in the first quarter, we were very pleased with the excellent performance of our Cabela’s CLUB Visa program and our focus on expense management, which continued to provide meaningful contributions to profitability,” said Tommy Millner, Cabela’s Chief Executive Officer. “Similar to broader retail industry trends, we continued to experience challenging traffic patterns in the first quarter. Our growth in average ticket was more than offset by continued decreases in transactions.”
“We continue to be very pleased with the results of our expense and process improvement initiatives,” Millner said. “We are particularly encouraged by the sustainable impact of these initiatives from their implementation in 2015 through the first quarter. I commend our teams for executing these profitability enhancing improvements throughout the business.”
