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The Card Factory has reported recovery to pre-Covid levels as its online sales increased 23.3% in the 11 months to 31 December 2021 (FY22) to £22.2m on a two year basis, with cardfactory.co.uk revenue increasing by 130.3% and gettingpersonal.co.uk revenue declining 11.4%.
Cardfactory.co.uk revenues also increased by 1.1% on the comparable period in FY21, offset by a 20.7% decline in gettingpersonal.co.uk revenues.
Pre-tax profits for the full year is expected to be in the range of £7m to £10m, with EBITDA to be in the range of £71m to £74m, and revenue is expected to be in excess of £360m.
Sales from retail partnerships also increased by 24% to £4m on a two-year basis and by 22% compared to 2020.
Meanwhile, the company’s total sales for FY22 was £337.3m, which is “ahead of the board’s expectations” but 20% below pre-Covid levels of £424.5m, due to trading restrictions and reduced consumer confidence following the easing of restrictions.
Overall, store sales for FY22 were £310m which represents a like-for-like decline of 5.4% on a two year basis, and a decline of 0.8% compared to the prior year.
However, the Card Factory experienced performance recovery from April 2021 as Covid-related restrictions eased, with like-for-like store sales showing an upward trend towards pre-Covid 2019 levels.
Darcy Willson-Rymer, CEO, said: “Our vertically integrated model has put the group in a strong position to partially mitigate the supply chain challenges and inflationary pressures that have been seen across the wider market to date.
“Whilst we expect to be able to offset inflationary pressures to an extent through price increases across our ranges, we do anticipate some margin pressure during the next financial year, as the forecasted inflationary headwinds continue.”
He added: “I remain hugely excited by the opportunities available to Card Factory as we focus on the implementation of our strategy and the transformation of the business to a full omni-channel retailer.”
