Sears Canada reduced its net loss in the third quarter to $21.9 million, about half what the department store chain racked up last year.
Still, it’s an improvement from the year-earlier loss of $44.1 million.
The third quarter of 2011 included negative items related to clearing excess inventory and internal restructuring at the national department store operation.
Sears says its revenue in this year’s third quarter ended Oct. 27 was $1.03 billion, down about $76 million from a year earlier.
Sears Canada’s chief executive, Calvin McDonald, says the quarter’s revenue was down partly because of fewer promotional and clearance sales of apparel.
The company also had lower pre-winter sales of snowblowers and reduced sales of televisions.
The third quarter results were announced nearly a week after the department store chain unveiled its new “Make Every Day a Great Day” tagline and platform.
The campaign is rolling out through November to include a 60-second television commercial, print and radio ads developed by The Unitas Reputation Agency, which replaced BBDO Canada on the account last May.
Sears is a retail destination that predominately sells “wants,” which tend to be more engaging and indulgent than consumer “needs,” which are functional, explained McDonald during an employee event at the store’s Toronto Eaton Centre location. “If you don’t bring them to the consumer in a more differentiated engaging fashion, others will do that and you’ll lose that sale,” he said.
With this in mind, it was important to focus on happiness when creating the new brand platform, said McDonald. “The repositioning of our brand is every one of us wants to be happy, we all want to feel great about today, we all want to feel great about the lives we’re living.”
There is a perception in the industry that Sears has become outdated and unable to compete with rivals such as the soon-to-arrive Target. McDonald, who joined Sears Canada a little over a year ago has been working hard to breathe new life into the tired department store chain. He set a three-year plan in motion to give the department store a makeover and shifted its focus to “key hero categories” such as major appliances, mattresses and furniture.
In May, Sears Holding Corp. announced it was reducing its stake in Canadian operations from 95.5% to approximately 51%.
