NEW YORK — Although Crumbs Bake Shop, Inc. believes it has the initiatives in place to contribute to the vitality of the business, the plans failed to pan out in the first quarter of fiscal 2013. The company sustained a loss of $1,975,000 in the quarter ended March 31, which compared with a loss of $783,000 in the same period a year ago.

Net sales at the cupcake specialty store chain increased, though, rising 7% to $12,080,000 from $11,277,000.

“While some of our financial shortfall can be attributed to weather conditions and economic headwinds, we have identified, and are addressing, three internal factors that limited our ability to achieve more,” said Julian R. Geiger, president and chief executive officer. “These include stimulating our beverage business, delivering our much discussed centralized ordering system and also making our vision of our celebrity chef sandwich program a reality. Once accomplished, we believe that these initiatives will make a meaningful contribution to the vitality of the business.”

Moving forward in 2013, Crumbs said it intends to balance opening new stores in super regional malls with upgrading select existing street stores and closing certain street-level stores in areas that have not been able to reach acceptable levels of financial performance.

Crumbs maintained its full-year 2013 forecast of $57 million for net sales and an adjusted loss before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $3,900,000.