After $2B Quarter, Skechers Is Cautious on Wholesale as DTC Shows Big Gains

After achieving a record $2 billion in sales during the first quarter, Skechers shares were up nearly 6 percent in mid-day trading, David Weinberg, EVP, COO and director at Skechers, told analysts on the company’s earnings call Thursday night that its second quarter guidance incorporates all the challenges it has seen in the domestic wholesale side. “Domestic wholesale is the largest headwind we’re facing,” Weinberg noted. “There was a little bit of Q2 [merchandise] that ended up shipping a little bit earlier, which impacted Q1 [sales]. It’s not an extraordinary amount, but it is an amount that came out of Q2 into Q1.” Indeed, the Los Angeles-based footwear company reported on Thursday that its domestic wholesale business was down 18 percent in the first quarter, mainly related to inventory congestion issues impacting many of its retail partners. Weinberg said he anticipates Skechers domestic wholesale segment to get worse in Q2, citing a slowdown in orders for the quarter. “While we’re hopeful that we’ll start to see a turn in that soon, the reality is what we can bank on at the moment is that this headwind will continue,” he said. But the rest of Skechers’ wholesale business saw gains. In fact, the footwear brand saw 3.5

Follow Footwear News on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook.

from Footwear NewsFootwear News https://ift.tt/opZW1zw