In morning trade the Myer Holdings Ltd (ASX: MYR) share price crashed 12% lower following the release of yet another disappointing trading update.
At the time of writing the department store operator's shares have recovered slightly but are still down 8% to 66.7 cents.
What was in the update?
According to the release, sales and profit have deteriorated further in recent weeks following a weak first-quarter.
A solid performance from its online business has not been enough to offset reduced foot traffic, leading to a profit shortfall that is unlikely to be recovered in the remainder of the first-half.
Despite investing heavily in marketing and traffic-driving initiatives, Myer has advised that total sales to the end of November were down 2.3% and down 1.8% on a comparable store sales basis on the prior corresponding period.
Unfortunately, December has been even worse. Sales during the first two weeks in December are down 5% on the prior corresponding period.
Myer CEO Richard Umbers said: "Trading during the past two weeks has been significantly below our expectations and the year to date run rate, and while there is an additional weekend of pre-Christmas trading this month, we do not know what the sales impact of that will be."
What now?
My advice would be to avoid Myer at all costs. While it is still early on in its five-year turnaround plan, I'm not optimistic that this plan will succeed due to the retailer losing relevance with shoppers.
Instead, I would suggest investors consider retailer such as Premier Investments Limited (ASX: PMV) and Bapcor Ltd (ASX: BAP) which remain relevant with shoppers and have strong long-term growth prospects.
