Card Factory PLC

LSE:CARD

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q2

[Operator]

Good morning. Welcome to the Financial Year 2022 Interim Results Presentation for Card Factory plc. [Operator Instructions]

I'm now pleased to introduce Chief Executive Officer, Darcy Willson-Rymer; and Chief Financial Officer, Kris Lee. Darcy, over to you.

[Darcy Willson-Rymer, executive]

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to our interim results update for FY '23. So this is our first hybrid event. And based on what the production team told me this morning, I have to somehow maintain eye contact in the room, but may I contact on the camera for all of those that are virtual. So welcome to everybody.

So I'm Darcy Willson-Rymer, the CEO. With me today is Kris Lee, our Chief Financial Officer; and Kris will provide the financial performance update for the first half of FY '23, and then I'll provide an update on the delivery of our Opening Our New Future growth strategy, and also provide you the outlook for the remainder of the year.

Let me begin by saying that 1 year on from the launch of our new strategy, we're pleased with the progress being made across initiatives that are vital for the growth of our business. We're evolving our customer proposition and transitioning into the customer-centric business that we need to be, to move Card Factory forward. And the first half has demonstrated that Card Factory remains a company that is loved both by customers and colleagues, and there's an energy from our colleagues to do the right thing, and that is reflected in our performance.

So we're pleased to report a strong performance through the half, which reflects continued good momentum within the business as well as the reversal of lockdown trends, with customers choosing to return to the high street. Combined with continued growth in complementary categories, this improvement was driven by our leadership in cards and the strong performance of everyday products across cards, gifting, party and balloons.

We saw good growth in life moments such as weddings and christenings, as well as in cards with celebratory captions, which reflects a return to more normalized lifestyles and social events following the pandemic. This also demonstrates the success of our card strategy to meet customer demand through our strong value proposition and our focus on range optimization, leading to notable improvement in our year-on-year market share.

At the prelims, we talked about the work being done to mitigate against inflationary pressures. And I'm pleased to report we have effectively managed these across the cost base, and Kris will talk you through this in more detail later in this presentation.

We're seeing the pronounced shift in spend back towards stores, and this supports our continued conviction in the value of our store estate within our customer proposition, and as an enabler to our omnichannel ambitions. And to that end, we are about to launch our first Click & Collect trials, which is an important milestone on our omnichannel journey. As a value retailer, with an exceptional value for money offer, we have a strong customer proposition that is performing well within the current economic environment. And as we approach the important Christmas season, we are confident in our preparations.

Finally, we've continued to strengthen our balance sheet with a significant reduction in net debt versus 3 years ago. So to discuss our first half financial performance in more detail, let me hand you over to Kris.

[Kristian Lee, executive]

Thanks, Darcy. Good morning, everyone. To just give the financial highlights for the half year to FY '23. So it's been a good performance in the first half. So like-for-like sales in stores has been plus 6.1%. We've had effective management inflationary pressures, as Darcy touched on, particularly around supply negotiations, business efficiencies and the hedges that were placed in the business. We've successfully delivered the refinancing to September 25 with GBP 150 million facility, and we significantly reduced the debt by GBP 74 million over the 3-year period despite a 9-month lockdown period. So to reiterate, expectations in terms of FY '23 remain unchanged.

Just moving to the financial summary on the revenue. So revenue year-on-year was up substantially to GBP 198 million. This was against the prior period, which had a period of 10 weeks of lockdown. However, against pre-pandemic levels, we've still grown sales by GBP 2.4 million to GBP 198 million. EBITDA as well as strong, GBP 43.8 million against GBP 23.6 million in the prior year. We opened a net new stores of 6, taking the store portfolio to 1,026, and we opened our first London store.

In terms of the PBT, GBP 14.3 million against a loss last year of GBP 6.5 million. And last year, bearing in mind, there was GBP 8 million of one-off grants from the government, which were not received this year. Net debt at GBP 96 million, in line with last year. I'll come on to -- that's in line with expectations because of GBP 32 million of deferral of payments during the pandemic, but, overall, bringing the debt down from 3 years ago from GBP 170 million.

Cash from operating activities, GBP 19.7 million. Again, I'll come on to this later around the deferred cash payments while that's lower year-on-year. And then, like-for-like from a group perspective, including online, was plus 4.1%. And as we've seen recovery of the sales back to pre-pandemic levels, minus 3.1% on a 3-year basis.

Turning to like-for-like sales. I've touched on some of these on the plus 6.1%. Card Factory online did go back 30%. This was anticipated on the basis we haven't had lockdown periods in this financial year. That is still an 86% growth on pre-pandemic levels in HY '20. And overall, Card Factory grew 4.1%. Getting Personal was more disappointing, behind expectations, up minus 36%. But I think the key point in terms of the recovery is around the store transactions and ABV. So we've seen store transaction volumes up 9.4% year-on-year, and we've seen average basket value tail off slightly by 3.1%, but still a positive delta of 6.3%. And ABV continues to have increased on HY '20 by 23%. So the key message here is, effectively what we're seeing is, transactions are recovering faster than what the average basket value is declining.

Just moving to the graph on the right. The yellow line is the effect of the like-for-like sales by month, year-on-year, and the blue line effects is the 3-year like-for-like position. So as you can see, the yellow line year-on-year like-for-likes have been significantly positive. The opening position in April '22 where that was negative, that was purely because, as you remember, stores reopened in April '21, so there was a halo effect in terms of the comparative in the prior year. And then, if we look at the 3-year basis, you can see that recovery, as we've seen from June onwards, that basically, the stores are into positive like-for-like, even though -- regardless of the fact that we've still got reduced footfall compared to HY '20 pre the pandemic.

Just moving to the divisional sales. Overall, group sales grew. And in terms of the stores, we're 82% up on the prior year. As I mentioned, there was 10 weeks of lockdown in the prior year. But the actual like-for-like sales of the same periods being open, we were plus 6.1%. So we're seeing a strong recovery. And you can see on the stores number, and in terms of the bar chart, the yellow and the blue line that we're back to pre-pandemic levels in overall store sales.

I've touched on Card Factory online, the 86% growth, and we're looking at GBP 1.9 million of growth compared to HY '20. And particularly, what we've seen is growth in card in both personalized and non-personalized cards, as well as in gifting and party in terms of the online channel. In terms of the partnerships, partnerships have performed strongly, GBP 0.5 million in terms of sales back in HY '20 now to GBP 4 million. And we're also looking at other opportunities in the U.K. and internationally.

Just looking at the margin bridge, Costs of goods and effects of the product margin did improve slightly, 0.6 percentage points. This was down mainly to currency. What we have seen though is we've managed to maintain product margins, despite the increase in freight costs and raw materials that we've seen. We've looked at different things in terms of supplier base, container fill, and other levels of mitigation.

Store wages as a percentage reduced over the period. There is a one-off benefit in there of GBP 2.5 million, which is a release of a provision on CJRS and store property costs, as expected, increased. This is because of the prior year, we benefited from grants from the government in terms of support for non-essential retailers.

While direct expenses fell as a percentage of sales, and operating expenses did increase to GBP 22 million, but again, there was in the prior year, some CJRS support in that number. And we have also invested in customer-led insight and brand proposition. Digital online is part of the strategy, and one of the key areas in terms of delivering the strategy as the investment in the IT infrastructure. Overall, an EBITDA GBP 43.8 million against GBP 23.6 million last year. So both in EBITDA margin percentage and in pounds, we've seen a significant improvement year-on-year.

Just looking at the 3-year net debt bridge. This is excluding lease liabilities. So in HY '20, we had net debt of GBP 170 million. This fell by HY '22 to GBP 96 million. One thing that should be borne in mind is, as part of the protection of the balance sheet during the lockdown periods, we agreed deferrals on VAT and rent. So there was GBP 32 million of deferrals in HY '22 that have effectively hit the first half of this year. So even though net debt overall between last year and this year looks to be the same, there is an underlying GBP 32 million cash generation in that period.

In addition to that, you can see there's some one-off cash costs of GBP 7.5 million in terms of the debt refinancing, which will be nonrecurring this year. But you can see in terms of the green bar, the EBITDA effectively, all this debt reduction has come through -- mainly through cost initiatives we've made, and also the general performance of the business.

So just looking at free cash flow for the first 6 months. Operating cash flow obviously has improved off the back of improved profitability. There's 3 other areas probably to call out around net working capital movement, CapEx and lease liabilities. So there's a GBP 35 million swing on net working capital, GBP 7 million, as I've mentioned, to do with deferred VAT. There was GBP 8 million in terms of this one-off grant income in the prior year. And one of the other things we've done, there's probably GBP 11 million in terms of additional stock build. This is where we took the decision to bring Christmas stock in early, obviously, with the disruption in ports. So we're well positioned in terms of trade in Christmas.

In terms of CapEx, a slight increase, GBP 2.1 million. Again, this is planned. Again, we're protecting the balance sheet in the COVID period. This is now the reinvestment effectively in the strategy. And lease liability payments, this is a normalization. As I mentioned, GBP 25 million of deferrals were in the prior year. So when looking at the free cash flow, although it's saying it's GBP 22 million negative, you've got to bear in mind that there's GBP 32 million of deferrals in there, plus there's this timing difference on GBP 11 million of additional stock build.

So on refinancing. The refinancing was successfully completed in April '22. This included the removal of any requirement to raise equity. It's a GBP 150 million facility made up of GBP 100 million RCF and then GBP 30 million of term loan and GBP 20 million of CL bills. We're now in a position that I think the balance sheet allows us to invest -- capital invest in terms of driving the strategy. There is a restriction on dividends until the CL bills and term loans are repaid. And the Board intends to maintain perhaps more prudent leverage ratio of 0.5x to 1.5x on a pre-IFRS 16 basis, and we'll focus on paying dividends at the appropriate time. At the minute, the earliest the Board is considering, commencement of dividend payments is January '24, based on the latest management view.

So to conclude on the outlook. So to reiterate, expectations for the full year remain unchanged. We anticipate that cost headwinds will continue in energy, currency, freight, material costs and wage inflation being the biggest ticket items. Particularly around energy, we're hedged until September [ 24 ], and these hedges were put in place before the hike we've seen in the wholesale market. We've got good coverage in terms of currency and FX. In terms of freight, that has been a significant headwind that is reducing. And we're also as I mentioned, focusing on container fill. And in terms of material costs, we've got multiple sources that we're exploring and have explored in terms of getting the best prices. And in terms of wage inflation, we've looked at, particularly in stores around business efficiencies and where we can use technology to take task out of store.

So in essence, through a combination of target price increases and efficiency savings, we've protected the cost base of the business. The full impact of the price actions will come through in the second half of the year.

So at that juncture, I'll now pass back to Darcy to just discuss the strategy update. Thank you.

[Darcy Willson-Rymer, executive]

Thank you very much, Kris, for the comprehensive update. It's been a year since we launched our Opening Our New Future growth strategy, and I'm pleased to provide an update on the delivery and the progress to date.

So if I recap, in summary, our strategy will transition Card Factory from being a store-led retailer into a market-leading omnichannel retailer of cards and gifts. Through this strategy, Card Factory is well positioned to become the U.K.'s #1 destination for all customers seeking unrivaled quality, value, choice, convenience, and experience. And we're working to transform Card factory into a leading omnichannel brand in our space, to help customers celebrate each and every special occasion. And it's our aim to become a global competitor putting cards and gifts in the hands of more customers.

We continue to deliver on the strategic initiatives, specifically around omnichannel, complementary categories and partnerships, with further milestones achieved since the last update at the full year results in May.

So let me start with omnichannel, and the delivery of our omnichannel strategy is about to begin with the launch of Click & Collect trial in 84 stores. As we test the approach and understand customer response, we'll be able to ensure the successful rollout of a full omnichannel offer in FY '24 and beyond. And we continue with our digital investments, completing the replatforming of cardfactory.co.uk, which has opened up product and ranging capability across our gifting categories. And as the success of our omnichannel strategy relies on the strength and breadth of our store estate, we continue to focus on the analysis of our first 5 model stores that we built, and we're pleased with the progress of that initial rollout, and we'll continue to evaluate performance and identify learnings, as we extend the model store format. And by trialing 2 small format trial stores in Central London, as well as 6 new stores in the Republic of Ireland, we continue with our plans to diversify our store estate in underpenetrated markets.

Looking ahead as well as the Click & Collect rollout and the opening of 5 more model stores by the end of the year, we continue to invest in our core infrastructure, with the second phase of our ERP implementation commencing after the Christmas peak. This will enable the ability to view stock in all areas of the business, but also enable the integration with future partners, both in the U.K. and internationally.

Moving on to complementary categories. I'd like to highlight some of the significant complementary category growth successes that we've seen in the first half. Whilst we continue to retain our leadership in cards through our successful card strategy, we are on track to grow our share of the complementary category, with its addressable GBP 5 billion U.K. market opportunity.

Starting with balloons and parties, we saw clear evidence that our customers have begun celebrating social events and other occasions, resulting in a strong performance in balloons and party, with an increase of 29% like-for-like in party sales. Expansion of our confectionery range to meet a broader set of customer needs saw a sales increase of 98% on a like-for-like basis. We've also launched new ranges in licensed gifts and party wear. And category expansion will continue through the next half, particularly with regards to confectionery, home accessories, toys as well as flowers and alcohol on cardfactory.co.uk.

We remain confident in the potential to attract new partners in the U.K. and internationally, and to succeed, we need to build the right partnerships. And to that end, we've now completed a thorough analysis of the international opportunity. And by working with global data, we've researched and sized international markets for potential opportunity. And then do so -- And in doing so, we've identified India and the Middle East as additional targets compared to what we previously announced. The team is now developing a pipeline of partners and building out internal capabilities to support delivery in newly identified markets.

We've continued to make progress through our ESG strategy on developing and delivering positive change across the business. We remain on track with our efforts to reduce waste and to improve sustainability of our product ranges, with 90% of products being free of single-use plastics by the end of FY '24. And all new cards and gifts produced for Card Factory are now glitter free. And by the end of FY '24, we expect to have sold through any existing stock containing glitter. Our focus on developing a diverse, inclusive and socially responsible culture at Card Factory, continues to be a priority, and is supported through our progressive DE&I strategy. And with the support and extensive consultation of all our colleagues, we've continued to have a positive impact across communities in the U.K. and the Republic of Ireland alongside the Card Factory Foundation.

Notable progress since the last update in May includes, entering into a new partnership with the Woodland Trust to support their work to protect, restore and create native woodland in the U.K., commencing work with a specialist energy consultancy to provide enhanced insight and recommendations to reduce Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions, and commissioning a review of our ESG structure and strategy to support the creation of a future road map. And we received Best Place to Work recognition in the Q2 results, and we're a top 10 Best Place to Work employer, and I'm delighted to on behalf of our colleagues to have achieved that.

So looking ahead, I'd like to start by summarizing our preparations for the Christmas peak. While we continue to benefit from the agility provided by having our own U.K. based production facility, we have put in place a number of actions to meet against any potential supply chain disruption from forest orders and across the U.K. ports, by bringing forward ordering and delivery of product. Further enhancements have been made to the store stock replenishment, which will increase availability of our products to our customers. And we will also benefit from having cleared through legacy stock created by the pandemic. Finally, recruitment of the 6,000 seasonal colleagues that we need for the Christmas season has commenced, and we're confident of our ability to meet our staffing requirements for this seasonal peak.

So in summary, we've delivered significant milestones in the first half of FY '23,as we progress our strategic growth plans, and we are on track to continue with this momentum. We have continued to develop our digital proposition about launching the first phase of our omnichannel strategy, leverage the strength of our storage date to transform Card Factory into an omnichannel business. Our value for money proposition is resonating with customers across an increasing range of products and price points, and the financial strength of the business continues to build, delivering a highly profitable business with strong cash generation, and a significant reduction in net debt.

We remain comfortable with the expectations for the full year, considering the combination of good trading momentum in everyday product, alongside the inflationary outlook and market uncertainty around consumer behavior through the Christmas season due to the cost of living impact. And whilst we remain mindful of the challenging economic background -- very challenging economic background, we believe our value proposition positions us to navigate this well. We remain confident that our customers will want to continue to celebrate life's moments, and that value for money is increasingly important to them.

The first half demonstrated our ability to effectively manage inflationary headwinds, which, as you've heard from Kris, has been achieved through a combination of management actions and targeted price increases. For the remainder of FY '23, we're well covered from a hedging perspective on both energy and U.S. dollar foreign exchange exposures, and we continue to be excited by the growth opportunity for Card Factory, and we remain focused on evolving our customer proposition and transitioning into a customer-centric business that we need to be, to move Card Factory forward.

So thank you for your time today, whether it's here in the room or online. Kris and I will now be delighted to take your questions. So we're going to start -- we'll start by taking 2 or 3 questions into the room, and then we'll move to online, and basically, we'll alternate. Sorry, if you're in the room, we're going to pass you a mic. And the mic is important. Even though this is a small room, it's important for the people that are online to be able to hear.

[Kate Calvert, analyst]

Kate Calvert from Investec. 2 questions for me. First question is, you've got your target of GBP 600 million sales FY '26 out there, of which, I think, about GBP 60 million was supposed to be online and GBP 60 million in terms of partners. You're slightly behind that, obviously, at the moment. Are you still sort of quite comfortable with that kind of shape of development going forward? And my second question is on the production side. Can you talk about the investment in production to sort of help scale up the business? Because you sort of pulled on that during COVID. So are you back on track in terms of putting out investment back in?

[Darcy Willson-Rymer, executive]

So first of all, I would say, in terms of the strategy, we're confident that the strategy we outlined in terms of the shape, size and the pillars. Look, in terms of the kind of time scale on the GBP 600 million, we started the year at footfall down minus 30%. That's improved. We're now minus 15%. The timing we'll have to see. So I think we'll continue to see how things develop. And I think we'll -- sometime next year, we need to give a full update in terms of kind of what's happening in the market and what the effective footfall is, and what that might do to the longer-term outlook. But in the meanwhile, I think, the strategic pillars are absolutely right, and we're focused on effectively the execution of those which will ultimately deliver the long-term growth.

In terms of production, so, I think -- so, I'll look at production in 2 ways. One is the production facility of our factory in Bradford that produces card, and then the -- in the same location, the fulfillment for online. And so yes, we continue to make investments in the factory and in the fulfillment, pace and sequence in line with the growth. And so, things like we will see an extension to the building, putting in mezzanine floors, those types of activities that will allow us to do production, but also looking at machinery life cycle and all of that. But I would say, yes, we're well placed and on track to deliver any changes that we need to do.

And again, with fulfillment, the way we're building the business model is an approach that, by -- effectively, it's wherever and however the customer wants to shop. So if you want to shop I store, that's fine. If you want to buy online, that's fine. And we just take a modular approach. So if the business shifts a bit faster online, then we can just ramp up the fulfillment. We physically own the premises, so our ability to kind of scale that up. And yes, so I think there's a bit of future proofing of the business.

[Adam Tomlinson, analyst]

Adam Tomlinson from Liberum. First question is just on pricing. Can you maybe just talk a little bit about some of the price increases you've put through? You talked about targeted price increases. Just a bit more color on that, perhaps what you're seeing in terms of the competition and that relative price gap that you've always managed to maintain?

Secondly, just on the omnichannel proposition. So you talk about Click & Collect. Again, just a little bit more color in terms of some of the other things that are going on in terms of the online proposition and how you're developing that would be helpful, please.

And then, the final question around international. I noted that you've picked out a couple of markets there today. Just maybe some color around the scale of those opportunities in terms of the size of those markets, perhaps how they compare to the U.K. would be good as well.

[Darcy Willson-Rymer, executive]

Okay. So let me start with pricing. So I think I have said, not long after I joined the business, that I think, pricing was an underutilized lever in the business, and I also reaffirmed at our last update that, I think, inflation, we need to cover through a combination of targeted price and -- whether it's efficiency or -- and efficiency is broad, whether it's efficiency of labor or redesigning product or whatever it might be. So on pricing, I think, first and foremost, we're focused on the consumer and our value-for-money proposition. We are not going to do anything that jeopardizes the value for money proposition. And then, it's about making sure that we're offering the right value to the consumer, and that we have the right price architecture across the range.

So 25 years ago, when the business was founded, we were selling cards at 29p. Today, we are still selling cards at 29p, and we probably have the largest value range of any of our competitors. And having that entry price point is absolutely critical. And then, it's about having the right architecture after that. So whether it's 29p to 49p to 79p, et cetera.

So if I give you the example of how we move price and when I say we're focused on value. So when we relaunched the wedding range this year, we moved our exit price point from GBP 2.49 to GBP 2.99. But we didn't just take the same card and put the price up. What we did is, we did the card. So looking at the design, looking at the words, how much foil is on it, how much embellishment is on it. And therefore, to the consumer, when they picked up the GBP 2.99 card, they said this is worth GBP 2.99. So obviously, focused on that value. And in doing so, we've moved -- we basically moved the price. So it's really important we maintain the value proposition, but it's all about getting the right architecture.

And then, in terms of our competitors, of course, everybody faces the same pressures that we have, and we're advantaged with a vertically integrated model. So sticking with that point on the wedding range that I made, we were able ourselves to redesign the card in our own production facility to do the additional embellishments. And that's the advantage that we have basically in our model. But everybody is facing the same cost pressures, and prices are going up a bit in the marketplace.

All right. On clicking -- on omnichannel. Look, we are -- on the omnichannel, there's a lot of work behind the scenes. So when we were together in May, I'd announced that Sam had joined us as our new Digital Director. So he's in place. He's in the middle of updating the strategy, but in the meanwhile, getting to work on the stuff that we need to deliver. Hence, getting the replatforming done, getting Click & Collect built. And then, there's other modules that will follow behind that. So things like multi-ship, new products coming onto -- yes, new products coming online. But equally, it's also about developing the capability and the ability to continually -- have continuous improvement in the customer offer, whether that's on how the web works, how the app works, to make it basically as simple as possible and easy as possible for customers. And so, as I say, a lot of work going on to do it.

And then finally on international. Effectively, we haven't put anything publicly about kind of size and shape of the market, but if I talk to you about the process. so we've gone through the desktop work that was done for the strategy, using global data, do this around the world using -- utilizing [indiscernible] heads up partnership, his experience. And so, we've gone back through each of the markets to size what's the total card market, what's the English speaking market, who the competitors are, what the routes to market kind of might be, and then prioritizing that.

And then we -- there's a whole bit of work to build internal capability to do it. So for example, our systems before we put in Phase 2 of the ERP, we can't ring-fence stock, would just be an example. So if you've got a container being shipped to Australia and we've picked all the stores before we picked Australia, that container will leave empty, whereas our stores, we can just pick tomorrow. So just -- it's getting the infrastructure right to be able to service the markets and take away the spreadsheets and kind of other stuff. That's kind of the work underway.

[Tony Shiret, analyst]

Yes. Tony Shiret from Panmure Gordon. Just a couple of easy questions. Can you give us…

[Darcy Willson-Rymer, executive]

I'll take those, and Kris is going to take the hard ones.

[Tony Shiret, analyst]

Yes. I just wondered if you could give us some update on the London store that's opened, and how the initial trading is going, and whether it's in line with the shape that you expected. And -- so that's the first thing. And secondly, a sort of similar type of question, I guess. In terms of range optimization, where are you in the sort of continuum of that view? How much more have we got to come on range optimization? And can you give us some sort of color on how maybe an optimized range has performed against some sort of control in terms of sales and profit per store?

[Darcy Willson-Rymer, executive]

Very good. So let me start with the London store. So effectively, we have 2 trial stores open. We have a third -- so Tottenham Court Road, Fenchurch Street, and [ Herbern ] is opening in a couple of weeks' time. Effectively, what we've done to -- one of the great things about Card Factory is the disciplines that we've had in our stores model. So maintaining the right build cost, the right rent structure, understanding the maturity curve, how to open stores, and to get those returns within sort of roughly 18 months. We've never done London because of the confidence of being able to do that.

So in terms of the trial, what we're doing is we're not kind of completely reinventing the model, but what we are doing is taking the model and just pushing the envelope on a number of different areas. So for example, we -- rents are slightly smaller in London, so that gives us a bit of confidence. We're then opening stores that are on the smaller side that we would normally open. So that slightly smaller square footage kind of keeps the rent down. We then need to push the average spend a little bit. So we're not putting our 29 pence cards into those trial stores, but we've also put some additional products and push the exit price to GBP 3.49, for example, in order to get the average spend up. So just by a little bit on rent, a little bit on size, a little bit on range, a little bit on price.

Our hypothesis says that we should have something that works in Central London. I mean the stores have been open for a number of weeks. So we're testing a number of different things. So we've got a store on Fenchurch Street which is largely catered to the business population. It's not open at weekends. It's busy in the morning, busy at lunch, kind of busy at 5 o'clock. It would do better on Mondays and Fridays. If you guys will all come back to the office, that would really help the sales. So that's the kind of city type test that we've got. Tottenham Court Road is kind of more on a -- bit of a shopping precinct and a thorough fair between 2 tube stations, and then I hope is a different thing again.

So we're kind of testing those different things. We're looking at the maturity curve, will that be the same, quicker, slower. So all of those -- but kind of really early days, but I'd encourage you to go, have a look at the store, and all feedback is welcome.

[Kristian Lee, executive]

To the point on range optimization, I think -- what is the optimum range. I mean, effects -- obviously, we do a lot of research into customer feedback and what customers are looking for. One of the areas we've mentioned is, we know in terms of the CAD market, GBP 1.4 billion, that is relatively static. In terms of the gifting market that we think we can play in, we've got the right to play in, it could be up to sort of GBP 5 billion. So one of the things we're very much looking at is the proposition, which can complement the card given occasion. So obviously, that will help drive the average basket value, which was one of the points I touched on earlier on.

And the other thing is actually on the complementary items. Even though the percentage margin might be slightly lower compared to card, then obviously in pound margin, it could be quite significantly higher off the higher price point. If the average card near GBP 1, the complementary gift could be GBP 3, GBP 4, GBP 5. So -- but that is a constant area that the commercial guys are constantly looking at, how to optimize that, as well as using EPOS data in terms of stock turn and space utilization in stores.

[Tony Shiret, analyst]

Roughly it's still in process and maybe halfway through 2/3, you know…?

[Darcy Willson-Rymer, executive]

I don't think it ever finishes. I think range optimization is a continuous -- it is a continuous piece. I think there is some catch-up work that we're doing. So all of the research that Kris talked about, the kind of analysis, trialing new products, et cetera, but I think it never ends. I think it's just to continue -- how do you continuously evolve the range and how do you continuously -- as customer preference changes, how do we do it. Through the research, we understood now that we have permission to play in a couple of categories that we've never done before. Confectionery came as a result of that. We tested some toys early last Christmas. They were very good. We've got this -- slightly bigger buy this Christmas, continue to see how it evolves and to continue to push the envelope.

[Tony Shiret, analyst]

But return is -- does it still make more profit at the end of the day, bearing in mind the mix of the product, the lower margin mix?

[Kristian Lee, executive]

Yes. I mean obviously, we mentioned about opening a net new 6 stores this year. I mean, clearly, we've been asked a number of times is that the right -- while we're opening more stores. And the ultimate fact of it is that they make good money and return on investment is still attractive. Clearly, the bit we're doing on stores is making sure the relocations amid stores, the 1,000 stores are in the right places, equally in partners, any new stores. But yes, like I say, one of the things on the complementary categories is, that actually drives the pound margin. So actually -- it helps actually drive the like-for-like sales growth.

[Darcy Willson-Rymer, executive]

Sales up, profit up. Gross margin up a tiny bit. So I would say we're focused on -- that's our job, is to drive more same-store sales growth and drive more cash profit.

I was just wondering if we've got -- we appear to have no questions online. Can we just have an operator to do a reminder for our online folk, please?

[Operator]

Absolutely. Thank you, Darcy. [Operator Instructions] We do, however, have one typed question from Masimo Antonello.

He asks, can you please clarify what are approximately the normalized lease liability payments for the full year and for the next year?

[Kristian Lee, executive]

GBP 40 million.

[Darcy Willson-Rymer, executive]

Very specific question with a very specific answer.

[Operator]

There's no more raised hands, but do raise your hand if you'd like to ask a question online. Darcy, back to you in the room.

[Darcy Willson-Rymer, executive]

I think we -- looks like that -- looks like we're done, unless there's anything else online. I don't think we need to drag it out.

So just let me close up by all of you that joined us online. Thank you very much for everybody that's here in the room at UBS. Thank you for making the effort. We'll kind of get some feedback whether the kind of hybrid thing works. And UBS, thanks for hosting us. I hope everybody has a great rest of the week and safe journeys wherever you may go. Thanks for attending today.

[Kristian Lee, executive]

Thank you.