The Athlete’s Foot held its annual general meeting in early November, which included discussion on the franchise’s impressive financial year results.

Total group sales reached $186.1 million, which is an increase of 11.6 per cent on the previous year.

Like-for-like sales for the full year were up 8.3 per cent, making 2010 the sixth consecutive year where the company has achieved like-for-like sales in excess of eight per cent, and total sales growth in excess of 10 per cent.

According to Ivan Hammerschlag, executive chairman of RCG Corporation, which holds the Australian and New Zealand licence for The Athlete’s Foot, said the franchise’s growth is the result of its customer service.

“If you go past our stores you’ll always see people on their knees doing up shoelaces, and in my view, what’s happened is that in retail in Australia everyone has been cutting their service levels and getting rid of staff so they can make more profits. We are very big believers in servicing our customers and being consistent with what we do, and I think customers respond high service levels.”

Profit before tax for the last financial year were up 26.8 per cent, to $10.4 million and the company continued to convert its stores to a larger format, allowing them to offer a wider range of products.

The number of large format stores is now 27, but according to Hammerschlag, all 145 Athlete’s Foot stores will be converted in the near future.