Watches cause a hiccup for Evine Live's turnaround

Evine Live Inc. can trace a disappointing first-quarter revenue report mostly to one item: watches.

The Eden Prairie company is undergoing many changes, including diversifying the product shows on its home shopping channel. As a result, Evine had scaled back some of the prime-time hours for Invicta watches.

Revenue fell 15 percent for all of the company's watches — some of the company's biggest sellers.

CEO Mark Bozek admitted on Wednesday that the company may have scaled back too much on those hours. Since the beginning of the year the company instead has stretched to introduce new proprietary brands and products in collaboration with well-known personalities.

"We've taken a different direction here, a very mindful direction, to create broader breadth and depth of merchandise with people like Todd English, Paula Deen and the Beekman Boys," Bozek said. "They've worked extremely well; we just need to balance that with our existing brands and our existing business."

Programming will be adjusted for the next two quarters to achieve that balance, Bozek said. Long term, he hopes to expand the breadth and depth of their product offerings to give their viewers and online customers more attractive brands they can't find anywhere else.

"We need more of them, in order to really grow and really sustain ourselves," Bozek said. The company is having its first investor day at its headquarters Thursday and is likely to announce more new brands then.

Evine also reported a loss of $4.7 million, or 8 cents per share, after showing a slim profit in the same quarter a year ago. The company reported an adjusted net loss of $2.1 million, or a loss of 4 cents per share, after accounting for a $2.6 million charge for "executive and management transition costs."

"While this quarter is a step back, we believe it's more a bump in the road and the core strategy around new merchandising and branding remains sound," wrote Mark Argento, an analyst for Minneapolis-based Lake Street Capital Markets, in a research note. "Patient investors will likely be rewarded."

Bozek took over last summer after activist investors the Clinton Group won a proxy fight with previous management. Bozek has made numerous changes in less than a year, changing the name of the company from ValueVision Media to Evine Live and, with that move, a rebranding and relaunch of the company's home shopping channel. He also reshaped the management and organizational structure.

Bozek said the company is in the early stages of exploring whether to add a second channel within the cable and satellite industry, as competitors QVC and HSN already have.