Bonmarché reports 7.8 percent drop in Q3 like-for-like sales

For its third quarter, Bonmarché Holdings Plc reported total sales decline of 8.1 percent with stores only like-for-like sales down 11.1 percent and total like-for-like sales including stores and online witnessing a drop of 7.8 percent. The company reported 22.2 percent increase in its online sales during the period under review.

"Clearly, in the short time since our last update, macro market conditions have not changed, but I am pleased that the sale stock is clearing well and that trading is in line with our revised expectations. In the short term, we continue to focus on ending the year with a clean stock position and ensuring that our balance sheet remains healthy,” said Helen Connolly, Chief Executive of Bonmarché’s in a statement.

Footfall improves

The company added that slight improvement in footfall towards the end of the month resulted in the store like for like sales figure being marginally better than the negative 12 percent, which together with an approximate negative 1 percent like-for-like for Q4, represented the mid-point of the underlying PBT range given. Bonmarché further said that online sales continued to grow strongly during the period, albeit at a lower rate than in the first half of the year and gross margin remained in line with revised forecasts and were below last year due to additional discounting and expected exchange rate headwinds.

Revising its forecast and assuming that sales will not show any significant improvement before the end of March 2019, Bonmarché had announced in December that it expected underlying PBT will be in the range of breakeven to a loss of 4 million pounds for the current financial year. The company expected store LFL sales for Q3 to be negative 12 percent, and approximately negative 1 percent for Q4.

Picture:Facebook/Bonmarché