Christopher & Banks struggles to figure out what customers want

US apparel retailer Christopher & Banks seems to struggle to understand what its customers actually want. The apparel retailer has just reported another drop in quarterly earnings and profits Tuesday.

The past months, Christopher & Banks has seen its sales have plummet, dragging the stock to barely 1 dollar a hare, its lowest level in more than three years.

On Tuesday, Christopher & Banks reported a 300,000 dollars loss, or 1 cent a share, in its fiscal third quarter to October, 31. That compares to a profit of 9 million dollars, or 24 cents a share, in the same quarter a year ago.

Sales dropped 6 percent to 103.6 million dollars, within range as per the company´s estimates (the retailer expected sales to drop 3 to 7 percent in the fourth quarter.) In fact, the company´s CEO highlighted that the sales and profit declines were in line with the company’s expectations, especially given the challenges in the women’s apparel market overall and the unseasonably warm weather that has been a problem for other retailers including Nordstrom and Macy’s.

Christopher & Banks still trying to figure out what exactly its customers want

On a related note, Christopher & Banks continues to fight an activist shareholder who has been pushing executives to consider a sale or new management in light of its struggles. In this vein, the company told analysts that the firm has spent about 700,000 dollars to date on legal and other related expenses. They now expect these costs to surpass 1 million dollars by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, the retailer is going through a holistic reshuffling plan. They have been consolidating many of its plus-sized CJ Banks stores and its Christopher & Banks stores to a one-store format that offers more sizes and collections. Besides, the retailer has reorganized its merchandising team and hired an external consultancy firm to help them turnover the business by the beginning of the new year.

According to the company, there is a thing that the customers are clearly not interested in: leggings. In a corporate release, executives of the Plymouth-based apparel retailer said leggings have languished on its store shelves despite being a fashion trend this year.

“It really just hasn’t worked for us,” said LuAnn Via, the company’s chief executive. “I think it’s mostly because it’s more constrictive for our customer. So that was a big miss,” report local media.

Likewise, sales of activewear, which has been another popular trend in the apparel world, have also been soft at Christopher & Banks. So the retailer is going back to its manufacturers to get looser styles that don’t hug the body as tightly.

Aimed to reverse the weak figures, the company’s executives have been eager to modernize their collections in order to offer shoppers a better balance between classic fashion staples and current trends.

However, LuAnn Via, CEO of Christopher & Banks, says stores’ clientele like the classic, easy-fitting clothing.

Still, “there were a number of product wins, as our customers responded to classic and easy-fitting styles, which were more reminiscent of heritage styling,” Via further explained in a call with analysts earlier this week.

On the upside, thematic and print tops performed well, she said. In particular, one of its best sellers that struck the right chord between classic and updated styles was a sweater with a deer on it that says “Oh deer.”