Baking trays and tableware are flying off the shelves at Dunelm; ditto garden furniture, blackout blinds and stick-on wallpaper (Patrick Hosking writes). With lockdown restricting people’s ability to eat out or to go on holiday, one thing that they can do is spend the money saved on their homes.
Fourth-quarter figures from the homewares retailer yesterday were better than expected, as was the speed at which the company is clawing its way back towards normality. For a while, after March 24, all 173 of its stores were shuttered; since June 22, all have been operating.
The 28.6 per cent fall in sales in the June quarter may look sickly, but the trajectory was reassuring. Sales compared with a year earlier were down by 78 per
