Sales dip at Blooms of Bressingham
Like-for-likes fall at garden centre retailer
Blooms of Bressingham has seen customers in cautious mode over Christmas, continuing a trend seen across the half year of increased customer numbers countered by lower average spend.
The garden centre retailer said it had seen encouraging sales of its improved gift range, up 11 per cent year-on-year. However, other lines. including traditional Christmas decorations, performed relatively poorly.
Overall, sales fell short of expectations, with like-for-like sales for the nine weeks to December 28 down 1.4 per cent, with the figures excluding the Gloucester centre, which is being re-developed. Customer numbers over the same period increased by 4.5 per cent.
Blooms said it discounted less than last year in the run-up to Christmas period and maintained margins overall. Post-Christmas sales are “going well”, with carried forward Christmas stocks are lower than last year.
For the year to date, like-for-like sales are down 2.3 per cent and customer numbers up 0.8 per cent, excluding Gloucester. The company said it is “taking steps to arrest the decline in customer spend by close attention to improved merchandising, ranging and pricing architecture”.
The company said its Gloucester and Rugby developments are progressing well, “although the openings will be between three to four weeks later than expected, with the Gloucester centre opening at the beginning of March and Rugby in time for Easter”.
To cope with subdued consumer spending for 2005 and to support the launch of the two new centres, additional promotional spend has been planned for the year ahead.
