Michael Hill performance glitters

Monday, 19 July 2021

Online sales have increased as a percentage of Michael Hill’s turnover.

Listed jeweller chain Michael Hill International has delivered its eighth consecutive quarter of sales growth.

Same store and online sales for the year ended June 27 were up 8.6 per cent on last year and 10 per cent on 2019. Digital sales were up 51.1 per cent and for the first time exceeded $30 million, making up 6.2 per cent of all sales.

Managing director Daniel Bracken credits this growth to the company’s “strategic transformation agenda”.

“We’ve seen record digital sales, our loyalty programme going from strength to strength, further deployment of omni-channel initiatives, and continued evolution of our product offering, go-to-market campaigns and retail fundamentals,” Bracken said.

Maryanne Wells has a jewellery brand called All Things Bright and Beautiful.

* Michael Hill forecasts higher profit, pays dividend, helped by wage subsidies

* Michael Hill expects to increase first-half profit on higher sales and margins

“We finished the year with a strong trading performance and a very robust balance sheet. Combined with demonstrated traction in our growth strategies, this sees the company well-positioned to continue its earning trajectory and explore new opportunities,” he said.

Despite losing 10,447 store trading days due to Covid-19 lock-downs, all store sales were up 13.5 per cent for the year.

Michael Hill had a year-end net cash position of $70m.

Over the year it closed four under-performing shops and opened one new one. It has 285 stores throughout New Zealand, Australia and Canada.

For the June quarter New Zealand online and shop sales were up 15.7 per cent and in Australia up 8.7 per cent. But Canada sales were down 7.6 per cent. For most of the quarter 40 Canadian stores were temporarily closed.