"Tough trading" squeezes ScS sales
Major furniture and flooring retailer ScS reports a slip in revenues over the last year and confirms a sluggish start to Q4 with no growth in September sales and a 4.4% decline during October.
The PLC has filed its preliminary results for the year ended July 29 which saw total sales decrease 0.4% to £343.5m from £344.7m in 2022. Excluding the acquisition of Snug in January, sales were down 1.2%.
Pre-tax profits were £8.8m, down from £16.4m in 2022, which SCS attributes to a large order book unwind during the 2021/2022 period.
In a statement on current trading, ScS said it has ‘toughened’ over the last three months with like-for-like order intake growing 2.7% in August, 0.3% in September and declining 4.4% in October. Overall, order intake was in line with the prior year for the 12 weeks to 21 October 2023.
Steve Carson, Chief Executive Officer of ScS, commented: “We are pleased to announce a resilient set of results and to continue to take market share in what is a challenging environment. We remain cognisant of the challenging economic environment facing our customers which is expected to continue throughout FY24. We therefore believe that continuing to focus on our value driven proposition is extremely important."
ScS said it was pleased with its progress on "elevating and modernising" its product offer and noted that it had expanded its hard floor proposition across laminate, luxury vinyl tiling and engineered wood.
• ScS announced yesterday that it was to be acquired by Italian retailer group Poltronesofà if a £99m deal it recommends to shareholders goes ahead - read more...
