Topps Tiles says its strategy of ‘outspecialising the specialist’ is paying off both online and in its stores.
The multichannel tile and wood flooring retailer, a Top100 company in Internet Retailing’s IRUK500 and an Elite company in the merchandising dimension, said today that it was on track to report both record earnings and growing market share in its latest financial year. Revenues are expected to come in at £212m in the 53 weeks to October 3, up from £195.2m in last year’s 52 week year. Like-for-like revenues will likely be up by about 5.3% on the same time last year.
This, it said, was entirely down to its strategy of out-specialising the specialist. There, initiatives included further development of an online room ‘visualiser’ so that customers can see what tiles will look like in their personalised room as well as new in-store merchandising treatments that have been tested in its Worcester lab store.
At the same time 17 new ranges have launched, and three new core stores and two boutique stores have taken Topps Tiles’ estate to 348 stores. The company now plans to centralise its head office functions to one Leicester site, and will close its nine clearance stores. The move will cost it about £3m in the current financial year, but Topps says it will see cost savings of £0.5m a year as a result, from the second half of its current financial year onwards.
Chief executive Matthew Williams said: “I am pleased to report that Topps will complete a successful year, with good growth in profits and a record level of turnover, both of which are directly attributable to our strategy of out-specialising the specialist.
“As a result of this, we are confident of hitting our one third market share goal by the end of this year and are well advanced on developing our next strategic goal for the organisation.”
