Still, one can’t help but wonder what lasting damage recent events have exacted. The company has swung from a £30.7m annual profit to a £79.9m loss after racking up a pile of one-off costs including a £16.2m writedown on its stores, but even on an underlying basis the numbers are ugly: profit of just £4.8m compared with £63m last year.
New boss Rachel Osborne says Ted Baker’s “net promoter score” – a measure of customer loyalty that chief executives obsess about – has actually gone up during the crisis but this isn’t just about whether you’re still down with the kids.
The past 12 months have exposed a business in chaos, or as Osborne puts it, one that needs to “rethink and reinvigorate governance and control” and “get a grip on operations”.
Throwing money at the problem is no guarantee it will go away.
Ikea queues offer hope to retailers
As anyone who has shopped at Ikea knows, the highlight of any trip to the Swedish flat-pack furniture emporium is the meatballs at the end, even if you get separated from your entire family navigating the seemingly endless maze to the checkouts.
Still, surely not even the promise of a cut-price Nordic feast is enough to explain the frenzy that greeted the reopening of Ikea’s stores on Monday.
Some shoppers reportedly queued from as early as 5.30am – over four hours before opening time. In Warrington, Cheshire, a line of an estimated 1,000 shoppers snaked around the car park in searing heat.
Yet, meatballs aren’t even on the menu because Ikea’s cafes remain shut. So was it lockdown boredom or the promise of some cheap furniture that was too good to resist?