Dunlem fourth quarter trading boosted by Worldstore sales
Homewares retailer Dunlem has seen its like-for-like sales increase by 3.8% in its fourth quarter although its full year like-for-likes declined by 0.5%.
In the 13 weeks to 1 July, total revenue rose by 6.7% to £217.4 million. When Dunelm’s recently acquired Worldstores was included, revenue increased by 17.7% to £240 million.
The fourth quarter results helped Dunelm’s full year revenue to rise by 8.5% to £955.6 million.
In a statement, Dunelm said it was “particularly pleased” with the strong growth in its home delivery sales which was due to the continued development of its online offering and the launch of Worldstores products on the Dunelm website. Overall around 20% of Dunelm’s sales are now generated online.
During the quarter, the company invested in allocating more space and improving the range of seasonal products which delivered sales growth of 70%. This helped mitigate some of the impact of hot weather conditions late in the quarter during its summer sale.
Dunelm chief executive John Browett said: “The Worldstores acquisition will provide a massive leap forward to our online and store offer that we think our customers will love. The integration is going well and we are confident in the benefits it will generate. With around 20% of our sales now generated online, we believe that we have arrived as a significant ecommerce player in homewares.
“We’ve seen a good quarter of trade with positive like-for-like sales growth and a very strong online performance. Encouragingly, we continue to take market share.
“We continue to invest in the business for the longer term to improve our customer proposition and infrastructure and, despite an uncertain consumer environment, we go into the next financial year with some good momentum.”
Dunelm now expects pre-exceptional profit before tax for the year to 1 July 2017 will be in the range of £109 million to £111 million.
