Revenues at Pets at Home have fallen in the ‘golden quarter’ as the challenging consumer environment led to fewer customers visiting stores.
The group highlighted “particularly weak” footfall from October onwards that hit the entire retail sector for a 2.4% decline in sales at its shops, with a 2.8% like-for-like dip.
The decline was partially offset by a 21.3% jump in vet revenues.
Overall group revenues in the third quarter to 2 January slipped by 0.2% to £361.6m.
Despite the difficult trading backdrop, Pets at Home left its full-year underlying pre-tax profit guidance unchanged.
“We are on track to deliver modest growth in underlying PBT this year as set out at our H1 results,” the group said in the trading statement.
“Against a still subdued consumer backdrop, we have maintained a disciplined gross margin performance, supported by strong Christmas seasonal sell-through, and effectively managed our costs.”
A drop-off in demand led the group to issue a profits warning with its first-half results in November, causing shares to plunge.
Analysts at RBC said Pets at Home was “a well-run business” with a market-leading position in the UK specialist petcare sector.
“Pets at Home operates in a relatively defensive category, but we think UK pet growth is likely to be more muted near term, given strong growth across the pandemic. We expect continued negative mix shift impacts to weigh on retail profit.”
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