The Wet Seal Inc, a leading specialty retailer to young women, reported net sales and comparable store sales for the five-week period ended April 5, 2008, or fiscal March, as follows:
Ed Thomas, chief executive officer of The Wet Seal Inc, commented: "We continue to experience the effects of a difficult retail environment. In addition, we believe an unusually early Easter holiday this year negatively impacted March performance, which also was up against our strongest comparable store sales month in the prior year.
As expected, March results in our Arden B division again were affected by inventory assortment weaknesses in fashion basic and wear-to-work product, which we believe we will begin to correct with deliveries starting in late April."
Mr. Thomas continued, "Consistent with our approach since late last year, we are managing our inventories and overall business with an expectation that this challenging retail environment will continue."