Land of Leather to expand Irish operations

BRITISH furniture retailer Land of Leather is aiming to expand its Irish operations over the next couple of years.

The company plans to expand its network of 90 or so shops across Britain and Ireland to a minimum of 140 over the next five years. It has 12 stores here — two in Dublin, one each in Athlone, Tralee, Bray, Kilkenny, Limerick, Cork and Sligo and three in the North. The Kilkenny and Bray stores were opened during the company’s second quarter.

According to a company spokesperson, details of sites and investment are commercially sensitive, but the firm would be looking to open in places where it won’t be cannibalising its own business. All of Land of Leather’s stores are company owned and investment on individual shops can range from around £30,000 (€45,000) to £250,000 — depending on whether they are brand new sites or existing shops which have been bought from other companies.

In a pre-close first-half trading statement just released, Land of Leather said profits for the six months will be “significantly ahead” of the corresponding period in the previous year, as a result of a strong pre-Christmas sales period and further improvement in gross margin.

However, it added that a difficult January sales period will affect second-half sales but full-year profits — for the 12 months up to the end of July — are still expected to be in line with market expectations.

“The second quarter sales reflect what has been a challenging January sale period for us. However, we remain confident in our strong product offer which represents exceptional value despite the fact market conditions are likely to be very challenging,” said Land of Leather chief executive Paul Briant.

Total sales order intake for the three months up to the end of January was up by 12.8%, while like-for-like sales orders were down by 4.6% on the same period in the previous year.