Card Factory CEO sets out strategy to deliver £600m sales

Darcy Willson-Rymer

Cards and gifts retailer Card Factory has outlined its transition from store led to an onmi-channel retailer targeting over £600m of sales by FY 2026.

The announcement comes as the businesses announces a pre-tax loss of £6.5m in the six months ended 31 July 2021, compared to a loss of £22.2m for the previous year’s equivalent period.

The Wakefield-headquartered business which appointed Darcy Willson-Rymer as its chief executive officer in December also reported a revenue increase of 16.3%, up to £116.9m from £100.5m.

Willson-Rymer noted that he remains “excited about the opportunities” available to the business having completed a review of the business and its growth strategy.

He said: “The delivery of the growth strategy set out in July 2020 – and the broader retail environment itself – has obviously been impacted by Covid-19. However, it is clear that the right way forward is to transition Card Factory from being a store led card retailer into a market leading, omni-channel retailer of cards and gifts.”

The former CEO of Clinton Cards added that whilst cards will remain the largest part of our business in terms of total contribution, he plans to “substantially increase” its focus on the complementary gifting and party markets, in order to enhance its customer offer and significantly increase “the size of our addressable market”.

Outlining this strategy he said that success would be the result of “putting the customer at the heart of everything we do” and ensuring they were offered outstanding value “however our customers want to shop”.

Looking ahead Wilson-Rymer said: “Although there remains some uncertainty about the speed of the post-pandemic market recovery in the short term, I firmly believe in both the resilience of the card and gifting markets and the fact that the majority of customer spend will remain in stores for the years to come. We look forward to successfully executing our strategy to transition Card Factory into a market leading omni-channel retailer of cards and gifts, delivering sustainable revenue and profit growth and driving value for all our stakeholders.”

The results for the first half of FY 2022 were described as “in line with Board expectations” and a reflection of the impact of more than 10 weeks of store closures across the UK and Republic of Ireland during lockdown.

Card Factory says store footfall levels remain below pre-pandemic levels but are still outperforming high street averages, while its online operations are performing well, though there has been a slight reduction in demand as stores re-opened as anticipated.

It also notes it has worked extensively to make sure it is as well prepared as possible for the forthcoming Christmas period, to minimise potential disruption from driver and labour shortages.

As previously announced on 21 May 2021, Card Factory completed a £225m refinancing during the period.

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