Taking a more active approach to helping customers enjoy their cars, sports and the great outdoors has proved a winning strategy for the Super Retail Group, helping it post strong growth in profit.
The owner of the Rebel Sport, Supercheap Auto and BCF (Boating, Camping and Fishing) chains on Friday announced it had boosted its net profit from $58 million a year ago to $100.5 million.
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ASX winners and losers - a snapshot
The stand out listings traded on the ASX captured at key moments through the day, as indicated by the time stamp in the video.
Investors celebrated the news by sending Super Retail's shares up strongly, taking it 9.5 per cent higher to $8.57 by midmorning on Friday.
At a time when retailers are lining up to bemoan the rise of online shopping and skittish consumers, Super Retail reported pre-tax profit growth across its auto (up 6.1 per cent), leisure (up 36.6 per cent) and sports (up 17.4 per cent) divisions.
Chief executive Peter Birtles said the company would look to build on its success by focussing on improving service and ensuring its online and physical stores delivered for customers.
"The keys to our future success will be to offer our customers the inspiring solutions and engaging experiences that will enable them to enjoy their leisure passions at the same time as enabling them to shop the way they want, whether that's in store, at home or at work or by clicking and collecting," he said.
Auto retailing, where sales lifted 3.6 per cent to $955.9 million, was enjoying strong growth partly off the back of a focus on 'fitment' - where staff not only sell a product to the customer, but fit it for them as well.
In sport, where the company has almost finished moving its Amart stores under the Rebel banner, total sales lifted 4.3 per cent $949.2 million, driven by strong growth in kids and men's apparel and equipment and accessories. One soft spot were sales of football boots, which weren't as strong as had been hoped.
Leisure had some challenges with Ray's Outdoors being shut down. In that process, 38 stores were closed and 27 transformed - or are still in the process of being transformed - into BCF outlets, leading to a 4.9 per cent in sales.
The division's pretax earnings jumped 36.6 per cent to $25.4 million though, driven by higher margins, solid like-for-like sales growth and a 150 per cent jump of online sales.
"It is particularly pleasing that we were able to maintain the positive momentum of the group through the second half of the year despite the softer consumer environment and the cycling of stronger results in the second half of the prior year," Mr Birtles said.
"From the customers perspective, we have seen increases in customer traffic in store and online, and an increase in endorsement scores."
JP Morgan retail analyst Shaun Cousins said the result was largely positive but flagged concerns about Super's ability to maintain its momentum.
"The Australian consumer environment is expected to become more challenging (labour market, energy costs, mortgage costs) and the entry of Amazon and other international retailers is expected to disrupt the industries in which Super Retail operates," he said in a note to client.
"Hence, while the trading update is pleasing, the outlook is subdued and the prospect of retention of forecast synergies and cost efficiencies may prove optimistic."
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