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Order by 7pm for next day deliveryThe Entertainer reports 31% profit increase
20/03/19
The Entertainer, the fastest-growing, family-owned high street toy retailer in the UK, has today announced a 31% increase in YOY profits.
The retailer delivered a total YOY sales increase of 21.7% for the 12-month period ending 28th January 2019 with LFL store sales growing by 12.3%. TheToyShop.com, The Entertainer’s online platform, reported a 38% sales increase for the same period.
The Entertainer also announced profit-related bonuses of £3m to its employees and the company’s policy of tithing profits resulted in donations of £1.6m. Along with other schemes such as Payroll Giving, ‘Pennies’ and carrier bag donations, their total charitable donations hit £2.7m.
The retailer added 16 stores to its UK portfolio taking its total to 163. It also grew its international footprint with the acquisition of Poly, a chain of 55 toy shops in Spain, and continued to grow the curated wholesale business through their partnership with Matalan which saw a further 54 toy departments opened, taking the total to 63.
This is in addition to the company recently announcing that it had acquired the Early Learning Centre (ELC). ELC operates within 80 Mothercare stores in the UK, 400 stores internationally via franchise partners and online through its website, www.elc.co.uk. The acquisition also included its portfolio of iconic British toy brands such as Happyland.
Gary Grant, Founder and Executive Chairman of The Entertainer comments, “We’re delighted with these results and credit our success to our enthusiastic, loyal staff, who we’re delighted to be rewarding with a record profit related bonus. 2019 will see us continue to keep a tight control on costs, further strengthen our own label product offering through our Addo brand, ensure we are first to market on key trends and of course offer excellent value for money to our customers.
“Our ambitious growth agenda will continue after our exciting start to the year with the acquisition of ELC and we will continue to look at every opportunity to expand our presence both nationally and internationally.”
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For further press information and to book interview time with Gary Grant, please contact the press office on: entertainer@speedcomms.com
About the Entertainer
The Entertainer was founded in 1981 in Amersham, Buckinghamshire by husband and wife team, Gary and Catherine Grant, who instilled the driving force and mission; to be the best-loved toyshop – one child, one community at a time. Today, it continues to be a privately-owned company and is renowned for being the largest independent toy retailer in the UK with a total of 145 stores.
As well as a strong High Street presence, The Entertainer has a successful website platform (TheToyShop.com) which offers a 30-minute click and collect service and has 22 million visits annually and growing. The Entertainer is also recognised for its charitable giving. Each year it tithes 10% of its net annual profit to charity, in addition employees are encouraged to donate directly through Payroll Giving. The Entertainer is also an active member of the Pennies scheme, the digital upgrade of the traditional charity box, which enables customers to donate a few pence to charity at the point of sale when paying by card. On average, this generates £5,000 of customer donations to Children’s hospitals each week. The Entertainer currently employs over 1200 staff across the stores and a further 160 in the Head Office in Amersham, Buckinghamshire.
The Entertainer was also ranked 49th in the prestigious Sunday Times “100 Best Companies to work for” in 2019.