Caleres’ eCommerce Sales Climb As Famous Footwear Harnesses Omnichannel

Caleres, whose stable of brands includes names like Famous Footwear and Dr. Scholl’s Shoes, reported that total company-owned eCommerce website sales climbed 21.4 percent in Q1 2021, according to a Friday (May 28) announcement.

The footwear company reported that direct-to-consumer (D2C) sales comprised nearly three-quarters of total net sales for the quarter. It also posted a 108.2 percent sales jump in its Famous Footwear segment.

“Caleres had a strong start to the year, maintaining its solid upward momentum in the first quarter of 2021, driven in large part by an outstanding performance in our Famous Footwear business, where we achieved record quarterly earnings and delivered record first-quarter sales levels,” Chairman and CEO Diane Sullivan said in the announcement. “Famous continues to leverage its enhanced omnichannel capabilities and capitalize on its direct-to-consumer model.”

Caleres also reported $243.5 million in selling, general and administrative (SG&A) expenses, marking an $18.3 million increase from Q1 2020. It posted $274.9 million in gross profits and a 43 percent gross margin. As for its overall results, Caleres posted 60 cents in adjusted diluted earnings per share on $638.6 million in net sales.

Caleres’ board of directors also declared a 7-cent-per-share regular cash dividend to be paid on June 30 of this year to investors on record as of June 11.

Caleres anticipates that sales levels will range from $625 million to $650 million and adjusted earnings per share will range from 50 cents to 55 cents for Q2 2021.

The news comes as the company said it closed the books on 2020 as a more flexible, concentrated and profitable firm, and was optimistic about the economic rebound for the latter half of 2020. In posting its Q4 results, the firm said net sales for the three months concluding Jan. 30 dropped 18 percent from a year prior to $571 million, its eCommerce sales climbed by 25 percent and its D2C channels comprised 75 percent of its business.