Lumber Liquidators loses a little more ground in Q2

Shares of Lumber Liquidators were down 9.76% at press time upon the release of its second quarter earnings report, which pointed to further losses.

Net sales for the second quarter ended June 30 came in at $238.1 million, down 4.0% from the second quarter of 2015. 

Meanwhile, comparable store net sales were down 7.2%, reflecting a 0.7% increase in the average sale that was offset by a 7.9% decrease in the number of customers invoiced. 

According to a statement from Lumber Liquidators, customer invoices had a hard time keeping up with those of last year, during a promotional period. Additionally, the company believes demand for certain product categories decreased.

Gross margin was one metric that improved: 29.7% in the second quarter of 2016, compared with 25.1% in the prior-year period.

Net loss for the second quarter of 2016 was $12.2 million, or a loss of $0.45 per diluted share, compared to a net loss of $20.3 million, or $0.75 per diluted share, in the prior-year period.  

Lumber Liquidators also touched on its ongoing regulatory skirmishes.

"While our financial results this quarter were below our expectations, we are encouraged by the progress we made in strengthening Lumber Liquidators for growth and profitability in the long term," said CEO John Presley. "We resolved several legacy regulatory issues, made good progress on resolving certain other outstanding legal matters, and continued to enhance our compliance program. We have also taken significant steps to improve store performance, ensuring our sites are equipped with the right people and products to serve our customers. In short, we are making steady progress, and will continue to focus on execution within the business in the coming quarters."