The luxury chocolate manufacturer has announced that it is seeking to increase its online sales while outsourcing warehousing and distribution activities in order to save £2m.
In what the company claims is a ‘positive’ move, the outsourcing of Thornton’s warehousing and distribution services is predicted to help the company save £2m in annual costs.
Thortons signed a six-year deal with HP Enterprise Services for IT services in September last year, and claims that the IT solutions provider has helped it on its way to make the £2m savings.
“This, together with the ongoing benefits of our procurement review and the recent restructuring of our head office cost base, should deliver a full-year benefit of £2 million that will flow through in full in the 2012/13 financial year,” a spokesperson for Thorntons stated.
Although the company has experienced an increase in sales of 1.7%, pre-tax profit decreased by 38% from £6.9m in 2010 to £4.3m this year. Increasing sales from the company’s online channel will play a major part in the company’s plans to rebound. Thorntons’ online channel made £9.6m in sales in 2011, an increase of 4.3% from 2010.
George Archer
