Furniture giant ScS cheered by best ever sales performance

The furniture and floorings firm notched up a record 14.8 per cent jump in like-for-like orders for the year to July 30 after a marketing push and website overhaul.

Its pre-tax profits came against losses of £1.7 million a year earlier, when it was hit by a dip in trading around last year’s General Election, finance charges as well as £3.7 million of one-off costs from its stock market flotation in January 2015.

But the group has not been able to keep up the pace of surging sales into the new financial year as it revealed like-for-like orders rose by 4.5 per cent in the first nine weeks.

David Knight, chief executive of ScS, said: “We are encouraged by our trading performance since the start of the current financial year, which is in line with our expectations.

“However, we are mindful that the group continues to face very strong comparatives during the remainder of the year.”

ScS said its move into House of Fraser with 28 concessions was starting to bear fruit, contributing to annual earnings as gross sales rose 19.7 per cent to £25.3 million.

It comes as a turnaround after the concessions suffered a difficult rollout in 2014, impacting the previous year’s earnings.

The group said sales across its 97 standalone stores was helped by a “significant” hike in marketing spend to £23.1 million, while it also pumped £1.4 million into its website to increase online orders.

ScS, which employs nearly 1,850 staff, opened two new stores in the past financial year and is planning another three in Plymouth, Thanet and Edinburgh to open on Boxing Day.