LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Greeting card retailer Card Factory on Thursday reported group revenue growth of 3.4% in the nine months to end October against challenging High Street trading conditions.
In a trading update, the company said that a 0.1% rise in third quarter store like-for-like sales improved year-to-date figure to -0.5% "reflecting an improvement in the performance of our core Everyday Card product category and increased average spend".

Website sales grew 47.3% in the third quarter, bringing year-to-date growth to 70.9%.

"Including the strong growth delivered by the Card Factory website, overall Card Factory like-for-like performance for the quarter was up 0.4%, resulting in a flat year-to-date like-for-like performance," the company said.

Chief executive Karen Hubbard said the company faced "reduced, but ongoing, external cost pressures such as national living wage and foreign exchange-related input cost increases; the latter is expected to ease in FY20".

"We remain focused on mitigating these headwinds with our ongoing programme of business efficiencies."

"Given our new ranges and our seasonal performance to date, we approach our Christmas trading period with confidence. We also remain positive about the growth prospects for the business over the medium term."

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