American Greetings ends fiscal 2011 with declining web sales

American Greetings Corp. ended the 2011 fiscal year on a pair of sour e-commerce notes: Web sales declined for the fourth quarter and the full year.

For the fiscal year ended Feb. 28, American Greetings, No. 160 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, reported:

• Sales for AG Interactive, the company’s e-commerce business unit, declined 2.4% to $78.4 million from $80.3 million in fiscal 2010.
• Total revenue declined year over year 2.5% to $1.59 billion from $1.63 billion.
• Net income increased 6.6% to $87.0 million from $81.6 million in fiscal 2010.

“Our business is running well, our financial results exceeded our expectations, and the team had a great performance in an otherwise challenging year,” says CEO Zev Weiss.

Internet Retailer calculates the web accounted for 4.9% of total sales, the same as in fiscal 2010.

For the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011:

• Sales for AG Interactive declined 5.9% to $22.2 million from $23.6 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2010.
• Total revenue declined year over year 0.7% to $423.3 million from $426.4 million.
• Net income decreased 17.6% to $15.5 million from $18.8 million in the fourth fiscal 2010.

Internet Retailer calculates the web accounted for 5.2% of total sales, compared with 5.5% in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2010.