Williams-Sonoma takes revenue hit from West Coast port slowdown

Retailer expects to be effected for several more months.    The labor standoff at West Coast ports may be over, with marine terminals slowly shedding backlogs of containers, but the impact on shippers is still ongoing. One illustration that shippers will be dealing with the after effects for a while came from Williams-Sonoma’s earning report on Wednesday.
   The multi-channel retailer said it expects a $30 million to $40 million reduction in net revenue and a 10 cent to 12 cent reduction in earnings per share in 2015, mostly in the first quarter.
   “We are very pleased with our fourth quarter results despite the effects of the West Coast port disruption. Unfortunately, we expect this disruption to continue and to have a more significant impact through the first half of 2015,” Laura Alber, Williams-Sonoma’s president and chief executive officer, said in a statement.
  Revenues for the quarter, ended Feb. 1, grew 5.2 percent to $1.5 billion. The company achieved an operating margin of 15.4 percent.
  FedEx, meanwhile, said it was able to help steer many of its customer’s shipments around the port bottlenecks using its airfreight service. The carrier had more time-definite freight coming from Asia to the United States because shippers sought last-minute alternatives to get around the bottlenecks at the West Coast ports, Express President David Bronczek said on an earnings call with analysts.