Danbury home-furnishings retailer Ethan Allen Interiors Inc. reported a fiscal second-quarter loss Thursday, stung by higher charges and consumers who are less comfortable laying out hundreds of dollars for furniture.
The housing crisis and high unemployment have cut into sales for retailers like Ethan Allen, and even those consumers who do hold jobs are spending less than they might have in the past.
Ethan Allen last week delivered a preliminary assessment to Wall Street that its quarterly performance wasn’t bright.
Net delivered sales for the three months ended Dec. 31 declined 24 percent to $143.3 million from $189.5 million. The retail unit’s net delivered sales slipped to $107.1 million from $147.2 million.
The home furnishing company lost $3.3 million, or 12 cents per share, compared with a profit of $5.5 million, or 19 cents per share, a year earlier.
Restructuring and impairment charges for Ethan Allen grew to $777,000 from $26,000.
Taking out restructuring and impairment charges and other items, its loss was 6 cents per share.
The company did worse than analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected. Their consensus was a loss of only 2 cents per share. (AP)
