Signet Will Emerge Stronger from COVD-19, say CEO

(IDEX Online) - Signet Jewelers will emerge from COVID-19 as a stronger company, said CEO Virginia Drosos, despite the planned closure of 400 stores and Q1 total operating losses of $291m.

She told the CNBC business news channel the coronavirus pandemic was a "a temporary setback" and their strategies, including e-commerce, were working.

"I see Signet emerging as a stronger team and company on the other side," she said.

Sales team working from home with iPads had reached out to 23m customers, she said, and held over 100,000 virtual appointments since most stores closed on 23 March.

Signet, the world's largest retailer of diamond jewelry, said earlier this week that it would close at least 150 retail outlets in North America and 80 in the UK immediately, and another 150 by the end of the fiscal year.

Ms Drosos (pictured) explained the company's decision to reduce its retail footprint.  She said: "We found a number of markets where we're over-stored, we found some places where we're still too highly exposed to declining C malls, also or B malls and we found more opportunities to move our stores off-mall, and so that's what we're doing.

She said that after two years of consolidating the company was focussing is attention on "re-imaginging the whole shopping experience".

She said: "It's not just about Kay in one store or Zales in another.  We've been looking at exciting new footprint opportunities, we've been testing James Allen inside Jared for example and it's driving traffic conversion and we think there are more opportunities for the houses we're in to support more banners."