1-800-Flowers.com Stock Wilts as Analyst Calls Out ‘Anemic’ Everyday Gifting

1-800-Flowers.com (FLWS) shares sank in intraday trading Wednesday after D.A. Davidson downgraded the company’s stock to “underperform” from “neutral” and lowered its price target.

The company is expected to post a year-over-year sales drop of 6%, but D.A. Davidson Senior Research Analyst Linda Bolton Weiser believes we’ll see an even larger decline, according to a note published Wednesday.

D.A. Davidson, which lowered its price target to $8 from $9, pointed to Bloomberg debit card data—which is 94% correlated to sales, according to the note—indicating a 15% year-over-year drop in the fourth quarter. 

1-800-Flowers typically sees an uptick in sales around holidays, but day-to-day gifting has taken a significant hit, the note said. 

“Consumers have tended to show up more on the big gift-giving holidays like Mother’s Day, but FLWS’ everyday gifting business (which is the majority of sales) has been very anemic,” Bolton Weiser wrote.

Year-Over-Year Sales Have Declined for Past 2 Years

In fact, 1-800-Flowers has seen year-over-year sales decline every quarter for the past two years, and the future isn’t looking rosy, either. 

“We also think FLWS could issue fiscal 2025 guidance below the Street: consumer sentiment remains at recession levels, everyday gifting is still anemic, and FLWS could face some cost inflation,” Bolton Weiser wrote.

Shares of 1-800-Flowers dropped 7% to $10.23 as of 1 p.m. ET Wednesday to move into negative territory for 2024.