Officeworks, Bunnings the star performers.

Officeworks and Bunnings are paying dividends for Wesfarmers with total sales third quarter sales for Officeworks up 9% to $558 million and Bunnings Australia and New Zealand rising 7.7% to $2.8 billion.

Wesfarmers managing director, Richard Goyder, pictured, said the sales performance of the group’s retail businesses was” generally pleasing” given the later timing of Easter in the 2017 financial year, with most businesses building on the strong growth achieved in the prior corresponding period.

“Officeworks strong sales growth was driven by the sound execution of its ‘every channel’ strategy, with positive sales growth achieved in stores and online,” Goyder said.

Bunnings managing director, Michael Schneider said the ongoing focus on delivering its strategic agenda continued to provide positive outcomes.  “We continue to invest strongly to deliver a winning offer to customers,” he said. During the quarter, one replacement warehouse and one replacement trade centre were opened. A further 17 sites were under construction at the end of March 2017. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, further progress has been made on transition, separation and integration activities following the Homebase acquisition. Total sales for the quarter were £245 million ($400 million).

 

 

In other Wesfarmers divisions, Kmart total sales increased 2.5% to $1.1 billion with growth coming from across the core ranges of home and apparel. “Sales were in line with expectations with more products sold at full price during the quarter,” managing director, Ian Bailey said.

Target, posted a decrease of 18.1% to $555 billion, which department stores chief executive, Guy Russo said reflected the ongoing transition of the business.  “During the quarter, the reset of merchandise disciplines was further progressed and the transition to everyday low prices continued, with higher levels of full price sales and lower levels of clearance activity achieved relative to the prior corresponding period,” Russo said. Trading momentum is expected to remain challenging in the fourth quarter, but reset merchandise disciplines are likely to support improvements in the quality of sales recorded, he said. During the quarter, Target made no changes to its store network.

Coles’ headline food and liquor sales increased 1.2% during the quarter with the business investing more significantly in the customer offer.