Shopping channel's brighter picture

The owner of the Ideal World shopping channel said it had tackled the "significant problems" facing the business after a back-to-basics strategy delivered a return in half-year profits.

Ideal Shopping Direct, which is one of the UK's biggest home shopping retailers, posted pre-tax profits of 2.9m for the six months to July 4, compared with losses of 1.2m a year earlier.

It said there had been "huge" improvements in key trading areas such as customer service and in the range of products on offer, which has been extended to cover more gardening and food categories. Ideal Shopping's main channel is broadcast on Freeview as well as Sky, Virgin Media and Freesat, while it has three other channels on Sky under the Ideal Extra, Ideal & More and Create and Craft names.

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It said sales increased by 19.3 per cent to 56.6m in the half year with the figure up 11.4 per cent on a like-for-like basis. Internet sales lifted by 58 per cent to 16.3m and now represent around a third of all revenues. Trading in the first eight weeks of the second half increased by 10.3 per cent.

Chief executive Mike Hancox, who joined the firm in November 2008, said "Many other retailers remain cautious about consumer confidence, but we are optimistic that we can continue to grow sales with our unique multi-channel business model."

When Mr Hancox joined the firm he found that IT systems introduced in 2007 were "not wholly fit for purpose", while the amount of airtime given to products that sold well resulted in a lack of variety in scheduling.

He re-introduced the option of customer agents for call handling after the launch of an automated ordering system was poorly received by customers.

Peterborough-based Ideal added it is considering a possible sale of the company as part of a review of options by advisers from Rothschild.

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