Gardners turnover up nearly 10%

Gardners annual results to the year ending 28th February 2014, filed on Companies House in October, revealed that turnover was up by 9.7% to £208.9m, up from £190.4m the year before.

The Eastbourne-based company’s gross profit also increased by 3.2% to £32.8m, but its operating profit was down by 12.3% to £5.2m, which the company attributed to “increased distribution costs associated with the increasing proportion of small parcels now being sent and some one-off costs associated with developing international operations.”

Gardners, which owns online consumer website Hive, has also invested in e-book technologies, infrastructure, equipment and technology in the last year. The company’s average number of employees was 699, up 33 on the previous year.