Card Factory reduces losses as sales rise by 16.3%
Card Factory saw its revenue increase by 16.3% to £116.9 million in the six months to 31 July despite lower high street footfall impacting transaction volumes.
The company also cut its pre-tax losses, which came in at £6.5 million compared to a loss of £22.2 million at the same time last year.
Meanwhile, online sales performed well and rose by 50.2% versus the same period two years ago before the pandemic hit.
Card Factory said the results were in line with expectations given the impact of ten weeks of store closures during lockdown.
Following the appointment of former Clintons Cards head Darcy Willson-Rymer as the company’s chief executive earlier this year, it has been reviewing its growth strategy and is now working to transform itself from a store led card retailer into an omnichannel retailer of cards and gifts.
In a statement today, Willson-Rymer said: “Whilst 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.”
Giving an update on current trading, Card Factory said it was satisfied with trading since the period end and that its performance was better than expected.
Looking ahead, Willson-Rymer said: “Although 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. We look forward to successfully executing our strategy to transition Card Factory into a market leading omni-channel retailer of cards and gifts, delivering sustainable revenue and profit growth and driving value for all our stakeholders.”
