Card Factory has chalked up rising sales and narrowed its losses after boosting its business in the gifting market.
The company, based in Wakefield, operates more than 1,000 Card Factory stores around the 海角视频 as well as websites for the business and its gifting firm Getting Personal.
It has now posted sales of 拢116.9m for the six months ended July 31 2021, a rise of 16.3%.
Ebitda surged by 202.6% to 拢23.6m and it reported a loss for the period of 拢5.2m, narrowed from the comparable period鈥檚 loss of 拢17.7m.
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It said the results were in line with the board鈥檚 expectations, reflecting the impact of more than 10 weeks of store closures across the 海角视频 and Republic of Ireland during lockdown.
Card Factory's new chief executive Darcy Willson-Rymer, who was appointed in March 2021, said store footfall levels were below pre-pandemic levels but that the firm is outperforming high street averages, demonstrating the strength of the brand and customer proposition.
The online division was performing well, albeit with a slight reduction in demand as stores re-opened as anticipated.
Ms Willson-Rymer said: 鈥淪ince joining the group one of my priorities has been to review the business and its growth strategy. Having recently completed that process, I remain extremely excited about the opportunities available to Card Factory.
鈥淭he delivery of the growth strategy set out in July 2020 - and the broader retail environment itself - has obviously been impacted by Covid-19.
鈥淗owever, it is clear that the right way forward is to transition Card Factory from being a store led card retailer into a market leading, omni-channel retailer of cards and gifts.
鈥淲hilst cards will remain the largest part of our business in terms of total contribution, we will substantially increase our focus on the complementary gifting and party markets, enhancing our customer offer and significantly increasing the size of our addressable market.
鈥淭he successful delivery of our strategy will be achieved by putting the customer at the heart of everything we do - ensuring that we provide outstanding value and quality across all our products and services, available however our customers want to shop.鈥
Looking ahead, it added that its remains 鈥渃autiously optimistic鈥 about the second half of the financial year, despite short-term uncertainty around the speed of the market recovery, the well-publicised disruption that is being seen in the supply chain, shortage of staff heading into Christmas, increasing freight costs and increased energy costs.
With less than 90 days until Christmas, the firm said it had made enhancements to preparations for the festive season, launching its seasonal staff recruitment drive early, while also introducing additional warehouse shifts to meet seasonal demand.
Ms Willson-Rymer added: 鈥淎lthough there remains some uncertainty about the speed of the post-pandemic market recovery in the short term, I firmly believe in both the resilience of the card and gifting markets and the fact that the majority of customer spend will remain in stores for the years to come.鈥
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