The key elements of Dunelm's strategy are:
- Growing the store portfolio
- Developing the customer offer;
- Exploitation of our infrastructure; and
- Growing Dunelm Direct.
Growing the store portfolio
The Directors are ambitious to continue driving Dunelm's growth by rolling out the successful superstore format. Of the existing 76 superstores as of June 2008, the majority are located in the Midlands or the North West of England and coverage of many parts of the UK is limited. The Directors consider that Dunelm's store portfolio is small relative to other retailers with national coverage and believe that the opportunity for geographic expansion is therefore very significant.
Developing the customer offer
Dunelm intends to continue to focus on homewares and plans to increase the depth of the current product range, providing an even more compelling customer offering. Our recent acquisition of the worldwide rights to the Dorma brand is one way of underlining the quality of our merchandise, as well as providing a strong point of difference compared with other home textiles retailers.
Exploitation of our existing infrastructure
The Directors believe that the Group is currently in a strong position to exploit further its increasing scale, as well as to benefit from the significant investments which it has made in recent years in warehousing and IT systems. The roll-out of SAP stock management to all of our stores this year has given us full stock visibility and led to a noticeable improvement in availability.
Growing Dunelm Direct
Our webstore now carries over 9,000 products; although still small relative to the remainder of our business we see this as an important source of future growth and we are investing in a new software platform which will make a big improvement in the on-line shopping experience.
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