Fourth-quarter financial results were firmly positive for Pacific Sunwear of California, but President and CEO Gary Schoenfeld wants to deepen customer relationships and enhance customer engagement to spark brand loyalty.
“High on the list for 2015 is further strengthening our customer connection,” Schoenfeld said during the company’s March 25 fourth-quarter earnings conference call, according to Seeking Alpha. “As I have said before, we have not had the luxury of a multimillion dollar marketing budget to boldly tell the customer about the new PacSun. We knew we were going to have to rebuild our connection the old fashioned way with our product and merchandising changing their perceptions over time.”
Pacific Sunwear of California’s total net sales in the fourth quarter were $232 million, compared to $219 million for same period last year. Comparable store net sales, including ecommerce, rose 6%. Ecommerce represented 9% of net sales and increased 7% over the last year.
“Great brands along with on-trend merchandising are what’s bringing new customers to PacSun,” Schoenfeld said. “In 2015, we are focused on enhancing that connection, both in-store and through social media, coupled with investing in key omni-channel initiatives that will frankly catch us up to today’s digital world and further strengthen our positioning looking ahead to 2016 and beyond.”
Schoenfeld admitted the road to success hasn’t been easy, but optimism abounds for 2015.
“It has not been an easy road getting here, but every day I am genuinely inspired by the creativity of the brands that we work with, the passion and talent of the people that are now part of PacSun, and the feedback that we received from our customers,” Schoenfeld said. “I believe we have a healthy spring-summer season ahead and none of those changes are internal expectations for 2015 as a whole. To that end, more than the few of you have asked, when do we think we can get to positive cash flow as a precursor to positive earnings. Obviously we are still very early in the year, but that is also one of our financial objectives for 2015 and we look forward to hopefully making that a reality.”