Christmas bonanza for a retailer bucking the trend; EXCLUSIVE Discount chain reports 9% increase in sales IN ASSOCIATION WITH Rensburg Sheppards.Byline: BY ALISTAIR HOUGHTON Business Staff DISCOUNT retailer TJ Hughes bucked the gloom in the retail sector after seeing sales soar SOAR - 1. State, Operator And Result. A general problem-solving production system architecture, intended as a model of human intelligence. Developed by A. Newell in the early 1980s. SOAR was originally implemented in Lisp and OPS5 and is currently implemented in Common Lisp. over the Christmas period. Sales for the five weeks to January 5 were up 8.9% on the same period last year, as the chain continued to attract cost conscious shoppers. Chief executive Sue Tennant, who has led the management team which turned round the ailing business since her return in June, 2007, says the company's January sales were also up on last year. For the year to date, sales are up 8%. TJ Hughes also managed to maintain its margins, concentrating on its existing reputation for value and not offering aggressive extra discounts to get sales up at the expense of profits. But Ms Tennant says TJ Hughes could not afford to be complacent com·pla·cent adj. 1. Contented to a fault; self-satisfied and unconcerned: He had become complacent after years of success. 2. Eager to please; complaisant. , as many of its low-income customers will also be hard hit by the credit crunch Credit Crunch An economic condition whereby investment capital is difficult to obtain. Banks and investors become weary of lending funds to corporations thereby driving up the price of debt products for borrowers. , and the company will have to fight to win new business. She said: "We had a very strong November and December. We managed to hold up our margins on the previous year. "We've been trying to get our message across in the media and through advertising for the past 12 to 14 months. When we got to autumn To Autumn is a poem written by English Romantic poet John Keats in 1819 (published 1820). Keats was inspired to write To Autumn after walking through the water meadows of Winchester, England, in an early autumn evening of 1819. and winter, it paid off. We were at the forefront of customers' minds when their purses tightened. "What's helped with our margins is that we've traded very well across all departments. "It was also a very good performance across all our stores." Ms Tennant said the company's Liverpool store, in London Road London Road may refer to several hundred (at least) roads. England There are literally hundreds of London Roads in England. Only those which are significant outside their local area are listed here:
She says she does not believe the discount sector will grow simply because of the general economic downturn. She says TJ Hughes has been successful because of its recent marketing push and the flexibility of its buying policies. She says this sales growth is a sign of TJ Hughes's success rather than a by-product of the crisis. She said: "I'm not going to say it's all to do with people trading down, otherwise every discounter would have seen a 9% like-for-like rise." The credit crunch may be attracting new cost-conscious customers, but Ms Tennant says she will have to work hard to encourage her existing customer base to keep spending. She said: "For our customers, bills going up by pounds 10 a week is the difference between them going shopping or not. Plus, our customers find it less easy to get credit." alistairhoughton@dailypost.co.uk CAPTION(S): TJ Hughes chief executive Sue Tennant says Christmas sales were up nearly 9% |
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