Department store David Jones has revealed a lift in sales for for the second quarter of the 2014 financial year.
The company today confirmed total sales revenue of $618.1 million and a total sales growth of 4.7 per cent for the period of October 27, 2013 to January 25, 2014.
On a like-for-like (LFL) basis total sales revenue for the second quarter of $602.2 million was up 2.1 per cent on the previous corresponding period ($590.1 million).
Total sales revenue for the first half of the 2014 financial year was $1,042.3 million, up 3.6 per cent from last year. Like-for-like sales for the half were $1,016.5 million up 1.1 per cent on the same period in 2013.
The company cycled the launch of its new webstore for the first time in the second quarter of 2014 and delivered online sales growth of 150 per cent.
Best performing states this quarter were New South Wales, ACT and Victoria. The company’s key categories of womenswear, menswear, beauty, shoes & accessories, childrenswear and homewares all delivered positive sales growth.
The company completed its exit of low productivity categories such as outdoor furniture, music and DVDs this quarter.
Commenting on the results, David Jones CEO and MD Paul Zahra said the company was “pleased to see growth in both foot traffic and basket size this quarter”.
“Whilst the sales growth experienced by the company in second quarter 2014 was pleasing we did experience aggressive discounting in the market pre Christmas, in particular in womenswear. We expect this aggressive discounting to continue in second quarter 2014.
“This quarter we were able to capitalise on the Future Strategic Direction Plan initiatives we implemented over the past two years. We continue to make good progress in the roll-out of our plan which will enable us to leverage improvements in consumer sentiment and trading conditions,” Zahra said.