By Will Feuer
Bowlero, the Richmond-based operator of approximately 350 bowling centers, experienced a drop in sales for its fiscal first quarter. The decline in revenue was attributed to the implementation of various promotions and bundled pricing offers.
Despite the decrease in sales, Bowlero managed to turn a profit of $18.2 million for the three-month period ending on October 1. This is a significant improvement compared to the $33.5 million loss reported in the same period last year. Analysts had predicted a loss of $10.9 million.
While revenue slipped slightly by over 1% to $227.4 million, it was still in line with the expectations of analysts surveyed by FactSet, who anticipated $228.8 million. Same-store sales experienced a decline of 5.5% compared to the previous year.
Bowlero’s Chief Executive, Thomas Shannon, acknowledged that the fiscal first quarter is traditionally the slowest for the company. He explained that this period was used to test different promotions and bundled pricing structures. However, these experiments had a negative impact on same-store sales.
Shannon stated, “Based on what we learned, we quickly struck the right balance between mid-week and weekend pricing and got a deeper understanding of our different customer segments.” As a result, same-store revenue has started to show signs of improvement since mid-October.
