The Warehouse Group says this year's unacceptable earnings have two parts.

It's posting a $54.2 million net loss after tax.

Last year it made a $29.9 million profit.

Sales at The Warehouse and Noel Leeming are down 5.3 percent and Warehouse Stationery is down 6.7 percent.

Interim CEO, John Journee says they get it right most of the time, but it needs to be all the time.

"Part of it is strategy and part of it is execution. We had a strategy, set it out five years ago - it was, in hindsight, too ambitious and also distracted us from looking after our core brands."

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