COVID-19 hit a lot of global fashion businesses hard, decreasing in sales and revenue. On Monday, Ted Baker’s twice-delayed full-year results looked bad as the fashion retailer announced a 44%+ drop in revenue and a pre-tax loss that widened by almost 39%.

Monday also saw the company reporting Q1 revenues for the 12 weeks to April 24. Q1 was hit hard by store closures due to the latest lockdowns in the UK, Europe, and Canada for parts of the period. Group revenue fell 19.9% in total, or 17.3% constant currency.

Ted Baker also highlighted the strategic progress it had made and its “increasing brand strength”.

The tough year was inevitable, but the company chose to focus on its transformation in the results report and put together a three-year plan, saying “progress in executing this plan has been encouraging, despite several of the legacy issues facing the business having been amplified by COVID”.

It said the Ted Baker brand “remains healthy, notwithstanding the impact of extensive store closures during the pandemic lockdown period. Customers have responded positively to our refreshed social media, campaign imagery and new product. NPS increased during the period and we have 1.2m active digital customers.”

CEO Rachel Osborne said, “We are making good progress against our strategic transformation plan and Ted Baker is increasingly well placed to take advantage of the significant growth opportunities ahead of us.

“While the impact of COVID-19 is clear in our results and has amplified some of the legacy issues impacting the business, Ted Baker has responded proactively and is in a much stronger place than it was a year ago.”

For some business, bouncing back simply wasn’t an option, and many retailers all across the world have fallen into pandemic bankruptcy or into administration, including; M&Co, Peacocks, Arcadia Group (parent company of brands such as Topshop, Topman, Burton, Dorothy Perkins, and Miss Selfridge) plus many more.