Dunelm says it believes it now has ‘arrived’ as a significant player in the ecommerce homewares market in the wake of its acquisition of Worldstores.
The retailer, a Top100 trader in IRUK Top500 research, said in a year-end trading update that its market share is growing and that a fifth of its sales now take place online.
In the update it said that total revenue in the fourth quarter of its financial year rose by 17.7% to £240m, and, excluding figures from Worldstores, by 6.7% to £217.4m. Total like-for-like sales, stripping out the effect of the acquisition and of store openings and closures, grew by 3.8%.
Dunelm chief executive John Browett said: “The Worldstores acquisition will provide a massive leap forward to our online and store offer that we think our customers will love. The integration is going well and we are confident in the benefits it will generate. With around 20% of our sales now generated online, we believe that we have arrived as a significant ecommerce player in homewares.
“We’ve seen a good quarter of trade with positive like-for-like sales growth and a very strong online performance. Encouragingly, we continue to take market share.
“We continue to invest in the business for the longer term to improve our customer proposition and infrastructure and, despite an uncertain consumer environment, we go into the next financial year with some good momentum.”
The retailer now plans improvements based on the Worldstores acquisition. They include next-day delivery for a wider range of products, including furniture, as well as an improved in-house two-man delivery service. There will also be cross sales, with Kiddicare products sold in Dunelm stores and online. A new proprietary technology platform is being developed that “will enable much faster development of products and services for customers.”
Dunelm currently trades online and from 159 superstores.
