Park Group sees orders bounce back
PARK Group, the Birkenhead-based Christmas hampers to prepaid gift card provider, said the retail failures of 2012 depressed revenues last year but orders have since bounced back.
Chief executive Chris Houghton told TheBusinessDesk.com that a string of retail insolvencies, such as JJB and HMV, had knocked the confidence of those who save for Christmas through one of Park’s schemes.
In the year to the end of March pre-tax profit was flat at £9.4m on revenue of £269.5m, down 3.3%.
Customers sign up for Christmas orders between September and February and pay off the order in the months leading up to Christmas.
Mr Houghton said: “About eight or nine retailers went bust and that impacted on the confidence of customers to go into a pre-payment plan. They couldn’t be sure of what retailers would be there the following Christmas.” As a result orders were down by nearly 3%.
Mr Houghton added: “This time that hasn’t happened. From September 2013 to February 2014 the general environment was much better and the general news about the economy was good so we’ve seen 10% growth in orders for 2014.”
Corporate business, which involves selling pre-paid cards to companies which are used for staff incentives, was also sluggish last year but is “showing a rise of 30%” in the first quarter, according to Mr Houghton.
