Halfords has posted flat sales in its first half as it warned consumers remain cautious in their discretionary spend ahead of the upcoming Autumn Budget at the end of this month.

The motoring and cycling retailer’s like-for-like were broadly flat, slipping 0.1% in the 26 weeks to 27 September in comparison although it was faced with a tough comparative period, as sales jumped 8.3% last year.

Its retail like-for-likes dipped 0.7% fall in like-for-likes, which it attributed in part to “the UK’s wettest spring since 1986” alongside a “challenging” performance in its cycling business.

Halfords Autocentres, which accounts for 40% of the group, delivered a 0.8% increase in like-for-likes, with strong growth in services, maintenance and repair.

The retailer said it had made good progress on its Fusion concept strategy, which consists of upgrading the retail car park service proposition in 50 towns alongside training nearly all our colleagues across retail and managers in Autocentres in selling “solutions”, empowering more colleagues with the tools to sell the full solution to every customer, every time.

The retailer said it was on track to deliver £30m of targeted full year savings to mitigate the £35m of expected inflation.

Despite the weak first half performance and “pockets of improving consumer sentiment”, it said its outlook for the year remains unchanged.

Halfords chief executive Graham Stapleton said: “While consumers remain cautious in their discretionary spending compounded by uncertainty around the contents of the upcoming Autumn Budget, we have continued to focus on controlling the controllables and I am pleased with our performance in the first half of FY25.

“Our services and B2B-led strategy has supported Halfords’ growth despite two of our core markets remaining significantly below pre-Covid levels, enabling us to absorb more than £130m of inflation since FY20 while maintaining a strong balance sheet.

“In this environment we are focused on optimising the existing platform to drive near-term returns, while accelerating our investment in the ‘Fusion’ concept to position us for growth in the coming years.”

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