It has been a turbulent couple of months for value retailer Shoe Zone (SHOE), which seems to have metamorphosed from cost-of-living-crisis winner to stock market pariah on the strength of a single comment by chief executive Anthony Smith.

In the firm’s extremely brief AGM statement in mid-March, Smith celebrated a successful year of growth in 2023 while cautioning current-year trading was ‘marginally’ below company expectations due to issues with shipping through the Suez Canal, higher costs associated with store upgrades and a slower than anticipated end to the Autumn/Winter season.

Bearing in mind the firm is in the middle of transforming its estate into ‘big box’ and hybrid formats, which generate higher sales than its old stores, and it expects product margins to increase due to lower container costs and canny buying, ‘marginally’ lower trading is far from disastrous.

And, as Next (NXT) and Primark have shown, consumers are prioritising spending on good-value essentials like clothing and footwear rather than nice-to-have products like watches and jewellery, which plays directly to Shoe Zone’s strengths.

The firm is due to publish its interim results for the period to March in three weeks’ time (21 May) and Shares for one will be keen to see what the firm has to say. 

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