The Works reports best ever Christmas
The Works has reported its strongest ever Christmas trading performance and has unveiled plans to open at least 50 new stores in 2018.
The retailer, which sells gifts, arts and crafts, books, toys and stationery, increased its total sales by 15% year-on-year in the 12 weeks ending 24 December.
Like-for-like sales grew by 6.3% over the same period which included the retailer’s highest ever turnover day, week and month.
Online sales saw like-for-like growth of 37% and accounted for 10% of total sales.
During 2017, The Works opened 65 new stores to take the total to over 430. The retailer also relocated its head office to a new purpose-built office facility and distribution centre in Sutton Coldfield.
Kevin Keaney, chief executive of The Works, said: “Our outstanding Christmas performance is the crowning achievement in what has been another hugely successful year for The Works. Our success is down to our strategy of continuously delivering exceptional value to all our customers which ensured we were not forced into heavy discounting before Christmas.
“Our strong performance in the ‘golden quarter’ builds on what has been a series of successful previous quarters and keeps us well on track to deliver very strong full year results.”
Following a £5.3 million investment in its 2017 store expansion programme, The Works has now put forward plans to open a minimum of 50 new outlets in 2018, and will also explore new store formats.
