Lands’ End CEO Federica Marchionni wasn’t pleased with the company’s third-quarter performance, pointing to external factors, including the challenging retail environment and warm weather, as well as internal dynamics. She added, however, that the company has progress on a number of initiatives to spark enhanced customer engagement, including a focus on ecommerce and its digital and print catalogs.
“We will continue to reinforce our print and digital catalog strategy to heighten brand awareness and aspiration, make our product offering more vivid and compelling, and ensure our brand messaging is more clear and aspirational,” Marchionni said on Thursday, according to Seeking Alpha. “We continue to make our ecommerce business a 
primary focus. If you recall from our Q2 earnings announcement, we reiterate our commitment to providing our loyal and new customers and more compelling and simplified online shopping experience. Given the customer acceptance of our new online feature in May, as well as our efforts to drive new customer acquisition, we enhanced our entire website in August to feature an improved merchandising assortment, a reconfigured side index, and a streamlined checkout.”
Overall, Marchionni said the company is encouraged by the positive customer feedback regarding upgrades to its ecommerce business.
“We continue to rollout enhancement of this channel to ensure the best customer experience possible on landsend.com,” she said. “We also saw a 42% increase in mobile traffic in the third quarter relative to the same period last year, largely due to a shift in consumer behavior and preference of mobile to desktop devices, as well as improvements that we have made to the mobile shopping design and functionality.”
Third-quarter revenue decreased 10%, to $334 million.
“In response to our sales performance, we were adjusting future inventory commitments and taking steps to move through current product,” Marchionni said. “Our strategy will center around enhancing product and merchandising, elevating the marketing and branding, and driving sales in our direct segment. We believe this strategy will lead to improved performance. Going forward, we continue to work hard to evolve into a go-to-brand for consumers seeking quality, value, style, and performance in product for all lifestyles and activities. Our focus is on increasing product relevance and reinvigorating the assortment with greater design appeal and innovation in our traditional styles. We are also developing an assortment to appeal to the younger customers that still embodies the Lands’ End DNA with products and messaging that reflect both casual and urban and sporty lifestyles.”
During the third quarter, Lands’ End focused on capitalizing on the Lands’ End DNA by bringing stories of adventure coupled with images of timeless, yet innovative products to consumers via different number of channels.
“One great example is the outerwear campaign that drew inspiration from the Alaskan wilderness, showcasing our product performance and looking amazing in the beautiful and right landscape,” Marchionni said.
In the third quarter, the company revamped its catalog dedicated to its loyal customers with improved product showcased by enhanced photography featuring authentic, multigenerational family teams’ images, as well as updated messaging and better consumer engagements. \
What’s more, Lands’ End launched an enhanced shoppable digital catalog experience during the third quarter.
“Although this is still in the early stages, we are encouraged by the early response to our enhanced digital experience, as we continue to improve the way that consumer interact with Lands’ End brand online.” Marchionni said. “We think that this digital catalog is a great compliment to our new distinct physical catalog distribution strategy, allowing us to target mailing based on how its consumers prefer to shop with us.”