Dobbies have announced their 2019 Christmas trading update today which reveals a like for like 6% increase on 2018 and 9% higher than 2017.

For the 9 weeks leading up to 29th December 2019 Dobbies total sales were up by 44%, including all of the new centres purchased from Wyevale Garden Centres during the year.

Their update states that performance has been driven by increased transaction volumes & growth in basket size, in both retail and restaurant divisions.

Graeme Jenkins, CEO, has said: “Dobbies Christmas trading continues to reflect the positive momentum we have delivered this year.  Driving our like-for-like sales performance was double digit sales growth across many key categories including Christmas decorations (+16%), artificial trees (+29%), toys (+17%) and crackers (+16%).   We saw a similarly strong performance for our restaurants, with over 135,000 children visiting Santa at one of our Christmas events.”

Andrew Bracey, Chairman, added: “Dobbies Christmas performance with sales up 44% and like-for-like growth of 6% is very encouraging. This important trading period followed the acquisition and successful integration of 31 new garden centres last year, seeing Dobbies double in size. We are delighted with the performance from the team.”

Read GTN's pre Christmas interview with Graeme Jenkins in the current issue of GTN using this link