Card Factory has revealed that year-to-date group revenue grew by 3.4 per cent, while like-for-like sales remained completely flat, reflecting the challenging conditions of the high street.
Meanwhile, Card Factory’s website grew revenue by 70.9 per cent in the year-to-date, and up 47.3 per cent in the third quarter.
While high street conditions remain tough, Card Factory’s website results meant the retailer’s overall like-for-like performance for the quarter was a sales growth of 0.4 per cent.
Ahead of the ever-important Christmas trading period, Card Factory released the year-to-date results analysing its trading in the nine months to October 31.
The greeting card specialist continued its store roll out for the period with 41 net new UK stores opening across the nine months.
It noted that it would open approximately 50 net new stores by the end of the full year.
“Despite the continuation of challenging high street trading conditions, we delivered positive like-for-like sales in the third quarter, marking a slight improvement on the like-for-likes performance seen in the first half,” Card Factory chief executive Karen Hubbard said.
“This reflected further growth in average spend and improved performance of our redesigned Everyday ranges, in addition to our growing Card Factory online business.
“The business faces reduced, but ongoing, external cost pressures such as national living wage and foreign exchange-related input cost increases; the latter is expected to ease in FY20. We remain focused on mitigating these headwinds with our ongoing programme of business efficiencies.
“Given our new ranges and our seasonal performance to date, we approach our Christmas trading period with confidence.
“We also remain positive about the growth prospects for the business over the medium term.”
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