Sofa so good for DFS sales

LOCKDOWN GROWTH HITS £70MILLION

SOFA maker DFS is sitting pretty after receiving a surge in orders made both online and in stores.

DFS Furniture, which includes DFS, Sofology and Sofa Workshop, said yearon-year order growth over the last six weeks was £70million – well ahead of the firm’s expectations.

The group said the sales surge was a consequence of lockdown, with pent-up demand from people spending more time in their homes.

The announcement could be a sign of green shoots at the Doncaster firm after it was forced to cut jobs in a restructure last month after its revenues dropped £450m year-on-year.

The job cuts are taking place at subsidiaries Dwell and Sofa Workshop.

But DFS warned that while its financial year had started strongly, “uncertainty

around Covid-19 on UK consumer confidence and the potential impact of Brexit make it difficult to assess the outlook beyond the short term”.

Boss Tim Stacey said: “The thing that has been a pleasant surprise for us has been that people seem to be switching their spend into home as opposed to holidays or leisure or fashion.

“We have 1,000 people in the UK making sofas every day and we are flat out at the moment.”

The news sent shares at DFS up 13% to 170p. The firm said it would provide a further update as part of its full-year results on September 24.

Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said: “A boom in sofa sales makes perfect sense. If you’re going to spend so much time at home, why put up with tatty seats? But one has to wonder if DFS has already seen its peak earnings this year.”