London, England, January 10, 2006--Ceramic tile and wood flooring specialist Topps Tiles saw sales fall 4.4% during the first 13 weeks of its current financial year.
The company, with 200 stores nationwide, also said in a trading statement that despite a "persistently tough retail market," gross margins were continuing to improve.
"We are now expecting to see some signs of improvement in sales," the group said.
"The very high comparatives we experienced throughout the first quarter of the last financial period are expected to become less challenging from Jan. 2006 onwards."
Its longer term outlook was upbeat.
"We remain confident that our proven business model and focussed management team, will continue to deliver sustainable growth to our shareholders," the firm said.
Topps Tiles in November said that like-for-like sales were down by 4.7% in the first seven weeks of the new financial year after describing trading conditions as volatile and tough.
