ShopNBC Posts First-Quarter Loss

-- Home Textiles Today, 5/24/2010 12:00:00 AM

Minneapolis —

Despite improving trends in customer activity, ecommerce and return rate, ShopNBC barely narrowed its first quarter net loss.

Net loss for the quarter ended May 1 to $11 million, compare to a net loss of $12 million in last year's first quarter.

With consumer electronics sales slack, revenues fell 6.6% to $125 million.

“The company continued to strategically lower its net average selling price to $108 vs. $144 in the year-ago quarter, while increasing net shipped units by 23%,” according to a company statement.

The number of new customers rose 48%, with the number of active customers up 30% during the quarter. Ecommerce sales penetration hit 39.6%, a record for ShopNBC. That rate up was 950 basis points from last year's first quarter.