Charlies turnover passes £40m
The company employs more than 300 staff across seven stores, selling goods ranging from footwear and cooking utensils to chainsaws and camping equipment. It is focused on large format stores of about 30,000 sq ft in out-of-town locations.
According to its latest set of accounts, turnover grew to £40.3m in the year to 31 July 2016, up from £38.8m in 2014/15. Pre-tax profit also increased to £2.1m from £1.6m the year before.
Charlies said the growth was down to an increase in like-for-like sales from our existing stores. The performance was said to be better in the first half of the year, “reflecting the cooler start to the summer in June 2016”.
In their report accompanying the accounts, the directors said: “Looking at the year as a whole our key sales successes came from ecommerce with sales up 26 per cent and Carmarthen where our sales were 10 per cent higher than last year.”
Staff costs increased with the company’s award of a 3 per cent pay rise to staff who were earning below £10 per hour, with a 2 per cent rise awarded to the remainder, ahead of the introduction of National Living Wage legislation.
Following the year end, the business has opened a second outlet in Aberystwyth with another set to open in Swansea, becoming its first city store.
Plans are also in place for 110,000 sq ft distribution centre at Offa's Dyke Business Park Welshpool, which will enable Charlies to serve a larger number of stores and to grow its electronic commerce business.
The directors added: “We remain optimistic about the future and as a consequence our level of investment in 2016/17 will be higher than the previous year.”
Charlies Stores currently trades from two sites in each of Aberystwyth and Newtown as well as Carmarthen, Queensferry, Shrewsbury and Welshpool.
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