ASOS (LON:ASC) issued yet another profit warning on Thursday, sending shares crashing during early trading.
Shares in the online fashion retailer were trading almost 14% lower after recovering from the initial plunge following the announcement.
This is the third profit warning issued by ASOS in the past seven months after those posted in March and December.
ASOS said that, for the four months to 30 June, though sales in the UK and ROW remained robust, European and US sales were held back by operational issues associated with the business’ transformational warehouse programmes.
The online fashion retailer said that it now expects overall profit to be in the range of £30 million – £35 million.
“Whilst we are making good progress in improving customer engagement, our recent performance in the EU and US was held back by operational issues associated with our transformational warehouse programmes,” said Nick Beighton, CEO of ASOS.
“Embedding the change from the major overhaul of infrastructure and technology in our US and European warehouses has taken longer than we had anticipated, impacting our stock availability, sales and cost base in these regions,” the CEO added.
“We are clear on the root causes of the operational challenges we have had, are making progress on resolving them, and now expect to complete these projects by the end of September.”
“Despite these short-term challenges, the move to a multi-site logistics infrastructure will enable us to offer customers across the world our market leading proposition, facilitate our future growth, as well as leading to longer-term efficiency benefits.”
Back in December, ASOS issued an unexpected profit warning in the run-up to Christmas, sending shares down over 40%.
As the UK high street crisis takes its toll on brick-and-mortar stores, online retailers were considered to be safe from the difficult trading conditions.
However, the trading updates issued by ASOS suggest that this is a wider issue, having an impact on more than just physical stores.
Shares in ASOS plc (LON:ASC) were trading at -12.87% as of 09:50 BST Thursday.
