abercrombie  fitch shares tumbled around 10 thursday after the apparel retailer reported disappointing sales as more teens are delaying backtoschool clothing purchases the company which also owns hollister cautioned it continues to experience shipping delays and inventory constraints due to manufacturing facilities being temporarily shutdown overseas and in the shortterm that will weigh on results right now its tough out there all the articles you read are real chief financial officer scott lipesky told analysts on an earnings conference call and those of us on this side of the fence are living through it every day abercrombie is managing through shipment delays of one to three weeks on average by pulling forward deliveries as much as possible and leveraging air freight where necessary lipesky said however he expects these steps will lead to higher costs in the back half of the year the retailer is hoping that manufacturing facilities in southern vietnam which have been on extended closure due to the covid pandemic will open by next month or by early in the fourth quarter but its out of our control at this point lipesky said for the threemonth period ended july 31 net income rose to 1085 million or 169 per share from 546 million or 9 cents a share a year earlier excluding onetime items abercrombie earned 170 per share topping estimates for 77 cents based on a survey of analysts by refinitiv net sales grew 24 to 8649 million from 6983 million a year earlier that was short of expectations for 879 million the company said sales at its hollister gilly hicks and social tourist brands rose 20 year over year while they were up 30 at abercrombie compared with 2019 and prepandemic levels the company said its fiscal secondquarter revenue was up about 3 in the united states abercrombies largest market net sales grew 31 on a oneyear and 11 on a twoyear basis for its fiscal third quarter abercrombie is now calling for net sales to be up 2 to 4 from 2019 levels of roughly 863 million   net sales in fiscal 2021 are forecast to be up lowtomid single digits from the 36 billion abercrombie achieved in 2019 chief executive fran horowitz told cnbc in a phone interview that so far the retailer is seeing a slowmoving backtoschool season with many consumers still holding off on major clothing hauls in past seasons she said the retailer has tracked a spending pattern of peaks and valleys with sales surging before a falloff in the fall but this year more teens appear to be readjusting to socializing and spending time on vacation before heading back to the mall its an elongated season horowitz said at this point in time consumers are still buying shorts and tees and even swim even though theyre not wearing that back to school the mindset will shift in the next couple of weeks  as we pass through labor day weekend and the new york area heads back to school for the first time in two years she said despite thursdays selloff abercrombie shares are up more than 70 year to date bringing its market cap to 21 billion