120% online sales spike supports The Works during “incredibly challenging times”

Crafts and books retailer The Works is optimistic about growth despite seeing a double digit drop in its sales.

In its pre-close update for the 53 weeks ended May 2 2021, the firm saw a dip in total sales of 19 per cent - which the company has attributed to government coronavirus restrictions and subsequent temporary store closures.

Despite the overall drop, The Works saw its online sales increase by 120.9 per cent compared with FY20.

Gavin Peck, chief executive officer of The Works, commented: “Like many retailers, the last 12 months have been incredibly challenging for The Works, which has historically relied mainly on in-store sales. Our business was severely impacted by successive lockdowns and forced closures of our entire store estate.

“Despite this, the period has highlighted the resilience of the business and our ability to both adapt our offer and leverage our multi-channel model.

“Since we couldn’t control store closures we focused on the things we could, keeping tight control of costs, optimising our operations and vastly improving our online offering.

“As a result, our financial position remained strong, online growth exceeded our expectations, and when stores re-opened we saw customer demand returning quickly to pre-COVID levels.”

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