Mothercare sales edge ahead
Recovery ‘on right track’
July 18 2003
Mothercare has seen a rise in sales over the first 15 weeks over the new financial year, but cautioned against comparisons with last year’s poor performance.
In a statement issued for the mother-and-baby goods retailer’s annual meeting, chairman Ian Peacock said: “The improvement in trading reported with our preliminary results in May has continued. UK like-for-like store sales for the first 15 weeks of the current financial year to July 11 2003 are up 3.4 per cent on the same period last year.”
In the year to the end of March, Mothercare saw turnover fall by 1.4 per cent with a 1 per cent like-for-like reduction. Over the year, 13 stores closed and five opened, but despite a reduction in sales space overall UK store sales increased by 1.9 per cent.
The company said warehousing and distribution, which was a major factors in its trading problems, is now working effectively “and the resulting availability improvement has benefited both sales and margins.”
Gross margin is up 5 percentage points on last year, but Mothercare warned its summer sale is likely to reduce the improvement to approximately 4 percentage points.
Peacock said: “These improvements in both sales and margins are encouraging signs that the business is on the right track. However, it is early in the financial year and we are measuring against a poor and volatile performance in the previous year.”
