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EARNINGS REPORT Harry & David's parent company narrows fiscal 3Q losses Comment By Greg Stiles Mail Tribune Follow @@GregMTBusiness MailTribune.com By Greg Stiles Mail Tribune Follow @@GregMTBusiness Posted Apr. 26, 2016 at 9:03 AM Updated Apr 26, 2016 at 4:51 PM By Greg Stiles Mail Tribune Follow @@GregMTBusiness Posted Apr. 26, 2016 at 9:03 AM Updated Apr 26, 2016 at 4:51 PM » Social News Harry & David's parent company, 1-800-Flowers.com , narrowed its third-quarter losses by 2 cents per share. The Carle Place, N.Y.-based firm Tuesday reported a $9.1 million, or 14-cent-per-share, loss for the quarter ending May 27, improving from a $10.5 million, or 16-cent per share, setback a year ago. The company's quarterly revenue grew less than 1 percent, to $234.2 million from $232.2 million. CEO Jim McCann said revenue grew from 1-800-Flowers' gourmet food and gift basket units, including Harry & David. The second fiscal quarter for those brand lines account for nearly 65 percent of its annual revenue and all the annual profit. "Our strong growth in this area over the past several years, including the addition of Harry & David, has significantly increased both our total annual revenues and total annual bottom line metrics," McCann said during a conference call. "Simply put, we are a much larger and much more profitable company than we were only a few short years ago." During the quarter, 1-800-Flowers was featured at Facebook’s annual “f8” developers’ conference as one of its first partners to deploy bot technology to place gift orders from within the Facebook Messenger service. The company also announced its partnership with Amazon, making it one of the first e-commerce companies to enable orders via voice commands on Amazon’s Alexa platform. Through the first nine months of the fiscal year, 1-800-Flowers produced revenue of $938.6 million, up from from $893.2 million a year ago. Earnings for the first nine months were up nearly 55 percent, to $48 million from $31 million a year earlier. Closing three Harry & David stores during the past year has reduced revenue by "a couple million bucks," McCann said. "We have some retail stores that do very well," McCann said. "We have some retail stores that were struggling where we thought that they couldn’t be changed. We have taken advantage of leases to exit those stores," he said. "But overall, we think that retail will not be a big contributor to the overall mix and not likely to become a very big contributor. We still think it plays a role with us in the future. I would expect to see another few stores come out of the mix as we ready ourselves for ... possible retail growth in the years ahead. But near-term, I would expect some more shrinkage in the store count as leases come up on less-well performing stores, but we have some stores that are doing really well." Even with the closing of the stores, Harry & David saw 3.2 percent growth in revenue during the quarter. "It's a small quarter compared to the first two," McCann said. "But the growth train has been consistent through the first three quarters." The parent company has revised upward its cost savings from integration of Harry & David to $20 million over three years. 1-800-Flowers previously expected $15 million in savings. "Revenue hadn't grown in a dozen years," McCann said. "Now we've seen two years of growth. (Wholesale) is clearly an area we have identified as a growth opportunity for us. And we will be going after that. We are getting some good reception, some good traction in this early sales cycle right now." Reach reporter Greg Stiles at 541-776-4463 or [email protected] . Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/GregMTBusiness , on Facebook at www.facebook.com/greg.stiles.31 . By Greg Stiles Mail Tribune Follow @@GregMTBusiness MailTribune.com By Greg Stiles Mail Tribune Follow @@GregMTBusiness Posted Apr. 26, 2016 at 9:03 AM Updated Apr 26, 2016 at 4:51 PM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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