Bedding retailer Adairs is set to avoid a repeat of its horror first-half result in FY17, advising the market that sales and earnings are well up on the prior period.

In a trading update delivered on Tuesday night, Adairs said its unaudited sales for first-half of FY18 were expected to be $149.1 million, a 19.8 per cent increase on the prior corresponding period.

First-half earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) is expected to come in between $21 and $21.5 million, up around 43 per cent from the $12 million in earnings it booked for 1H17.

Issues with product and marketing mishaps in the first half of FY17 saw the bedding retailer report a 1.4 per cent decline in like-for-like sales for the last financial year.

But as a result of more recent trading, Adairs has upped its full-year guidance, saying that it expects sales of between $300 and $310 million (FY17: $265 million) and EBIT between $40 and $44 million (FY17: $30.8 million).

CEO Mark Ronan said the improved trading is a result of changes made during the second-half of FY17, which saw sales improve significantly in the second-half.

“The responsive changes implemented in FY17, together with execution of our core strategy have helped deliver a stronger product offering that has resonated well with our broad customer base,” he said.

“We continue to achieve strong sales growth form the investments in an improved omnichannel customer experience and our customer loyalty program. Further, our focus on broadening our product offering particularly in our larger format stores has also been effective.”

Adairs is due to deliver its full half-year result on 26 February.

In November last year, Ronan said the company is looking to deliver an international website in 2018.

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