Hanover’s web sales boom while total revenue sinks

Hanover Direct Inc., which operates a number of catalogs and their associated web sites, increased its Internet revenue to $81.8 million last year, up 30% from the year earlier level, the company reported today. Hanover’s web-based revenue accounted for 15.4% of all revenue last year, up from 10.4% the prior year, when web revenue reached $62.9 million.

While its Internet revenue was growing companywide revenue at Hanover Direct fell 11.7% to $532.2 million last year, down $70.8 million from the prior year’s $603 million. The revenue decline was partly the result of the sale of the Improvements business in June, which accounted for $27.6 million of the reduction in revenue, and the discontinuance of the Domestications Kitchen & Garden, Encore, Kitchen & Home and Turiya catalogs, which contributed $21.2 million to the reduction.

Hanover Direct, based in Edgewater, NJ, reported a loss for the year of $5.8 million vs. a loss of $80.8 million the year before.