Dixons anticipates a difficult Christmas

by Scott Bicheno on 25 November 2010, 12:33

Tags: DSG International (LON:DXNS)

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A picture of austerity

Dixons group - the UK's dominant electrical retailer - announced its results for the 24 weeks to 16 October this morning. They revealed a significant improvement on the same period last year, but the group still lost £7.9 million for the half-year, including a loss of £10.7 million in the UK and Ireland.

CEO John Browett didn't have much in the way of optimism to offer investors in the short-term either, saying: "We're not expecting to have an easy Christmas," and blaming the impending public sector cuts for general consumer reticence.

On the bright side Browett said tablets and 3D TVs are selling well and, once more, stressed how well the ‘renewal and transformation' plan is going. On the latter topic he was keen to bring attention to the Star Wars ad campaign, which is designed to bring attention to the PC World/Currys megastores the group has been rolling out across the UK - see below.

Other notable developments were the growing presence of Phones 4U concessions within his stores - there are already 51 and that's set to double - and the impending launch of KnowHow; yet another tech support service. The latter development came with the admission that TechGuys is a bit too "geeky" for regular punters, so it's not clear what fate awaits the latter brand.

 

 

 



HEXUS Forums :: 20 Comments

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About the one piece of good news retailers can rely on for Christmas is that VAT is going up in the New Year. The bad news for them is that, in the New Year, VAT is going up.

Make hay while the sun shines guys, however dimly it might be shining, because serious cloud cover is on the way.
To be honest DSGi is another shop brand destined to die, mainly because they are too expensive on purpose some things have massive margin mark ups (okay not everything but somethings are really marked up)

Pretty much 90% of the customers i served while there were only there because they didnt shop online, so Old people, people wanting to pay cash etc… now how long can this generation last? The only time the average person came in was when something dropped in price massively i.e. £1000 40inch 3d tv… and what happened… 80% of them sold with nothing attached which got all the staff in trouble and made bugger all money…. this is the point the brand lives on attachments people dont actually want.


Long live internet e-commerce.
Well it isn't suprising that they are making a loss. PC “so called” World does not keep up with the market and only seems to sell old crap at a very inflated price. I thought it was just their web site which was behind, but it isn't the whole store is way behind and quite often you can go next door to Currys and get the same thing cheaper. If a proper PC warehouse style store opened it would cripple PC World within a year.
Exactly, the only reason I go into shops like PC World or Currys is just to see how much of a rip off they are or to get a closer look at something before going online for it.
ilh
Exactly, the only reason I go into shops like PC World or Currys is just to see how much of a rip off they are or to get a closer look at something before going online for it.

+1. They are pretty much the easiest place to take a look at a wide range before going online