Mild weather hits Dunelm Group's results

Dunelm Group said the mild weather has seen the number of people entering its stores decrease, but home delivery sales are on the rise.

The FTSE 250 homewares retailer released a trading update on Wednesday for the 26 weeks to 2 January 2016.

The group’s total sales for the latest quarter clocked in at £245.7m, with the majority of sales made in store, while home delivery sales increased 23.4% to £16.5m.

However, like-for-like results were skewed by the number of days of its Winter Sale in the year.

With an extra week included in the company’s reporting period, it saw eight days of the sale included, compared to two days in 2014.

Adjusting for the calendar impact, underlying like-for-like performance was -0.8% for the quarter, but grew 2.0% in the second half of the calendar year.

"These trading numbers are a reasonable outcome given the unseasonably warm weather,” said chief executive John Browett.

“We have had a very strong sale after Christmas and we expect further good progress in the second half.”

Shares in the retailer were down 44.9p (4.96%) to 860.1 at 0832 GMT.