Carpet and flooring retailer Carpetright has released results for the 13 weeks to January 26, 2013, revealing sales up 1.6%, a LfL boost of 3.2%.
Store numbers decreased by four to 476, and the total number which have been modernised has been brought up to 122. It's a positive turnaround compared with this time last year, when sales dropped by nearly 5%.

Carpetright's chief executive Darren Shapland said: "We are pleased to report a period of good like-for-like sales growth in the UK of 3.2%. Excluding the expected contraction in sales from the wholesale businesses, our core UK retail business would have reported like-for-like sales growth of 4.7% for the period.

"We believe this performance reflects the success of our programme of self-help initiatives, including the development of our bed business, introduction of our laminate range to more stores and the ongoing programme of store refurbishments, all of which gained momentum in the period."

Gross margin was revealed to be "in line with previously announced expectations" and Mr Shapland added that "our guidance of a full year gross profit percentage improvement was in the range of 200-250 basis points above the prior year remains unchanged."

Carpetright's business across the rest of Europe showed solid performance in Belgium and the Republic of Ireland offset by continued weakness in the Netherlands. Like-for-likes decreased by 11.5% in local currency terms, while total sales declined by 11.2%.

"The group result for the year to date is in line with management's expectations," added Mr Shapland, "and whilst trading conditions remain challenging, we have good momentum in our self-help initiatives. That said, as ever, our performance in the final quarter will be critical to the outcome for the year as a whole."