With a weaker demand over Christmas, Quiz has issued its second profit warning in three months.
Down from the previous estimates of £11 million in October last year, the fashion retailer now expects 2019 profits to total £8.2 million.
Following the announcement, shares in Quiz tumbled 33%.
Tarak Ramzan, the group’s chief executive, said: “Against the backdrop of challenging trading conditions over recent months, Quiz has delivered further revenue growth over the Christmas period driven by the performance of our own websites. However, the growth and the margin achieved have been below our initial expectations.”
“Management’s utmost priority remains achieving further growth for the business and improving profitability in the future,” he added.
Quiz is a Glasgow-based retailer and has 70 stores and 148 concessions across the UK. The group also has stores in Ireland, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, Singapore, Cyprus, Egypt, Georgia and Pakistan.
Quiz floated on the Aim market in July 2017, where it attracted over £100 million from investors.
“Quiz became the latest High Street casualty as its shares plummeted on a profits warning. Overall performance isn’t bad at all – sales rose more than 8.4%, led by a 34.1% jump in online revenues. High Street sales held up ok, rising 1.6%,” said Neil Wilson, who is an analyst at Markets.com.
“But we got a bad profits warning. It looks like discounting is really killing retailers. There is just no way they can pass on higher costs by raising prices. Consumers are simply not prepared to pay more. The discounting vicious circle means shoppers are now expecting big price reductions. Margins at Quiz are like others coming under a lot of pressure from heavy discounting,” he added.
Shares in the fashion retailer (LON: QUIZ) are currently trading -29.73% (1110GMT).