Dunelm enjoyed sales increases in some furniture categories of more than 30% as it saw record half-year profits.
Total sales rose by 10.6% to £795.6m in the six months to 25 December, with pre-tax profits 25% higher at £140.8m. Sales were 36% higher than 2019.
‘Our growth was broad-based across nearly all of our product categories, with strong performances in furniture categories which grew by over 30% in areas such as dining chairs and beds, driven by better availability and new ranges,’ says Laura Carr, Dunelm cfo.
‘We further expanded and innovated our product offer, including approximately 250 extensions to ranges in furniture, both across living and dining furniture; for example desks in our Compton Ivory range, and widening our own brand beds and mattresses offer, for example with Fogarty mattresses. We also made good progress on our sustainable product goals, for example our 100% responsibly sourced cotton bedding range and our re-engineered Egyptian cotton towels are now using significantly less water in the dyeing process,’ says Nick Wilkinson, Dunelm ceo.
‘We have progressed the development of our new furniture hub in Daventry. We relocated one of our in-house home delivery network ‘hubs’ to this site in December 2021 and began accepting in-bound inventory to the main warehouse in January, with the site expected to be fully operational in March. This facility is an important step in our ability to scale furniture growth, enabling both range expansion and improved customer experience in terms of availability and speed of delivery.
The markets we operate in (homewares, furniture and decorative DIY) have grown in low single-digits, at a combined 1.5% CAGR over the past five years, 1.4% over the past 10 years and slightly higher at 2.2% CAGR over the past two years. In comparison, Dunelm has grown at 10% CAGR over both the past five and ten years and this growth has accelerated to 12% over the past two years. Our growth has been driven by long term market share gains.
‘We calculate that 85% of our growth over the last five years has come from market share gains. We gain market share by continuously and sustainably improving our customer proposition. We see headroom for further share gains through continuous expansion of our product offering and the services and experience we offer across our brand and our total retail system.’
