
Retailer Card Factory has reported a 6.2% boost in sales as it posted a successful Christmas trading period.
The high street greeting cards, gifts and celebration accessory business has told shareholders it delivered a good Christmas trading performance, in line with expectations in November and December, with total revenue growth of 4.7% driven by higher spending by customers.
The Wakefield-based chain, which operates a network of more than 1,000 shops in the UK, said customers had a higher average basket value on the back of bigger ranges of gifts and celebration essentials, with confectionery, licensed ranges and soft toys performing particularly well, leading to like-for-like store revenue growth of 3% in the last two months of the year.
In a trading update for the 11 months ended December 31 2024 the firm said it chalked up robust trading, buoyed by its 32 new stores, with total sales of £506.6m – up from £476.9m – an increase of 6.2%. It said total store revenue rose by 5.7%, although online sales, through its two websites gettingpersonal.co.uk and cardfactory.co.uk, dropped 10%. Separately, cardfactory.co.uk like-for-like sales grew 0.5% as it focused on growth through higher margin product ranges.
Meanwhile, like-for-like store revenue grew 3.9%, which it said reflected the further development of its store estate “and the strength of our value and quality proposition”. Looking ahead, the board said it expects to deliver full year adjusted profit before tax, excluding one-off items, in line with current market expectations.
It said the changes to National Living Wage and Employer National Insurance Contributions will result in annual cost inflation of circa £14m in FY26 “but we expect to offset this through our proven approach which includes our ongoing productivity and efficiency programme, as well as range development and pricing, while continuing to invest in our future growth. Despite these inflationary pressures, we currently expect to deliver a mid-to-high single digit percentage increase in adjusted profit before tax in FY26.”
Darcy Willson-Rymer, chief executive officer, said: “We are pleased to have delivered another successful Christmas trading period. Thanks to the hard work of colleagues across the business, growth was driven by further progress against our strategic initiatives and execution of our commercial offer. Expanded ranges and our compelling gift and celebration essentials offer increased basket values during the period, whilst we also saw a resilient performance in seasonal cards, with customers responding well to our strong value and quality ranges.
“Continued revenue growth, combined with the benefits of our productivity and efficiency programme, have enabled us to navigate a challenging retail environment and deliver a robust performance in the second half. As a result, we expect to deliver full year profits in line with expectations and remain well positioned to manage inflationary pressures in the near term, as we continue to deliver on our strategic growth ambitions.”
Full year results will be published in May.
Original artice – https://business-live.co.uk/all-about/yorkshire-humber