There’s no disguising the fact, general market conditions have been difficult over the last twelve months. Despite this, I’m pleased to report Armour Home has performed beyond our expectations. Due in no small part to our continued investment in new products, new technology, new people, new premises and, of course, training – we have seen record numbers of trainees this year.
The many USPs built into our products have helped us maintain retail prices, despite the seemingly desperate antics of some of our competitors, but of course, like everyone we have suffered from exchange rate issues.
An ironic problem of doing better than expected is that we ran out of stock of some products. Optimising stock levels in an unpredictable market is a real challenge and I confess we’ve got it wrong on a few lines.
Armour has enjoyed record sales in the first quarter of our new financial year, starting September 2009. This has been our best ever sales period, for both Armour and Alphason, in over 30 years of trading, so we have reasons to be optimistic.
Beyond this, the forthcoming World Cup is already having a positive effect on our ‘attachment sales’ of furniture, cables and ‘Q-TV2’, the amazing new ‘invisible’ sound upgrade system for televisions, which is destined to be our most successful product ever — with innovation again the key feature.
