UK-wide stationery retailer taking 'cautious' future steps following trading results

Multi-channel value retailer The Works has revealed its trading update covering the 26-week period to October 27 2019.

Total revenue increased by 5.4 per cent year-on-year, and when excluding the impact of the prior year, sales were supposedly down by -1.9 per cent. This performance reflected the ‘difficult’ consumer backdrop over the period.

The Works heads into its peak trading period with ‘confidence’ in its Christmas offering, which includes a range of new products. A number of other propositional improvements undertaken in the first half and softening comparators are expected to support LFL improvement in the second half of the year.

Whilst like-for-like sales have improved over recent weeks, as the impact of the prior year’s Mega Trend eases, they were apparently not at a level previously expected.

Accordingly, The Works is taking a more cautious view on trading ahead of the Christmas trading period.

Kevin Keaney, chief executive officer of The Works, added: “The consumer environment has remained challenging and we have been trading against strong comparators…

“We have responded decisively to minimise the impact to our performance and are benefiting from easier comparators in the second half.

“We now look ahead to the busy Christmas period fully prepared and ready to deliver for our customers with a fantastic selection of good quality and great value products.

“Notwithstanding the current backdrop, we remain confident in our medium-term growth opportunities and we continue to invest to unlock them.”

Results for the first half of 2020 and an update on Christmas trading will be announced on 16 January 2020.