Shoe Zone ups guidance as trading improves

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Nov 1, 2021

Shoe Zone’s recovery continues. In a mere 18 days since reporting a return to profit in its full-year results, the value-focused footwear retailer has already upped its earning outlook.

It said Monday that reported profit before tax is now expected to range from £9 million to £10 million for the 52 weeks to 2 October. The reason? “Underlying trading has been better than expected,” it said in a short statement.

Another reason for the raised outlook is that the company also said it now won’t be required to recognise around £1.5 million of one-off additional pension contributions within its income statement. Oh, and Shoe Zone’s also benefited from favourable foreign exchange rates, particularly versus the dollar, "which adds a further revaluation benefit of approximately £0.4 million from the previous forecast”.

Okay, there was no update on lower year-end revenues (down to £119.1 million from £122.6 million in 2020, albeit on 50 fewer stores). But earlier this month, the retailer said it’s expecting continued digital revenue growth to help it in its recovery.

At £30.6 million, online sales for the latest year were up 58.5% compared to 2020 and up a massive 188.7% compared to 2019.

But it also stressed that its physical store network of 343 high street units “is critical to our future success even though digital will be at the core of our [rebound] strategy”.