A SHORTAGE of must-have gift items failed to derail Clinton Cards this Christmas, after the greetings card firm reported an uplift in sales.

The group said like-for-like sales for the five weeks to December 24 were up 1.8 per cent on a year earlier, helped by an increase in sales of around five per cent in Christmas cards and éeverydayé cards. However, it said this was offset by a decline in sales of gift products, which it blamed on the scarcity of good new lines during the festive season.

At the Bury-based Birthdays chain é acquired by Clinton in 2004 é trading showed signs of improvement, after like-for-like sales increased by 3.3 per cent.

The groupés 1,100 stores comprise 732 Clintons outlets and 368 Birthdays.

It is the UKés largest specialist greetings card retailer, ahead of Greeting Card Group, which filed for administration last week.

Cardfair

The Greeting Card business, which has 470 stores trading as Cardfair and Card Warehouse, blamed a slump in high street footfall for its problems.

Clinton cited the same factor when it said pre-tax profits fell to é6.1m for the year to July 30, compared with a figure of é34.2m the year before.

The firm has struggled since it paid é46.4m for its biggest rival, Birthdays, two years ago é just before the downturn in consumer spending in the UK sent sales and profits into reverse.

Ahead of yesterdayés update, analysts were forecasting a recovery in profits to é12.4m for the current financial year.

Clinton indicated it had overcome the pressure on the high street, as like-for-like sales across the group é Clinton and Birthdays combined é rose 2.1 per cent in the five weeks to Christmas Eve.