Online retail group Buy It Direct Ltd, owner of Furniture123.co.uk, has reported a reduction in sales as well as a loss.

According to its latest filed accounts for the year ended 31 March 2022, total sales fell 3.5% to £421.2m from £436.7m in 2021. Pre-tax losses resulted at £10.4m, down from a profit of £32.7m year-on-year.

Stated within its report, the company said that trading through much of the year continued to be at the high levels of the previous year. However, the widely reported and significant supply chain costs and delays led to major disruption in the second half of the year.

“As a result, the group started to anticipate higher stock levels than required and it therefore commend an early programme of discounting selling prices to avoid being left with high stock levels. Whilst these actions rebalanced the levels of cash and stock, the group incurred losses in the latter part of the year and overall,” the business said.

Since the year end, the group added that it has successfully completed the programme of stock reduction and maintained strong levels of liquidity and returned to profitability.