Un­der the own­er­ship of LJ Williams Ltd, The Home Store is un­der­go­ing a sig­nif­i­cant trans­for­ma­tion de­signed to re-es­tab­lish its com­mer­cial vi­tal­i­ty and repo­si­tion the busi­ness in a rapid­ly shift­ing re­tail land­scape.

The re­struc­tur­ing, set to cul­mi­nate by fis­cal year 2026, marks a mo­ment of re­cal­i­bra­tion, as the brand adapts to changes in con­sumer be­hav­iour and macro­eco­nom­ic pres­sures.

Cen­tral to this plan was the clo­sure of three re­tail branch­es—C3 Cen­tre in San Fer­nan­do, The Falls at West­mall in West­moor­ings, and East Gates Mall in Trinci­ty—be­tween De­cem­ber 2024 and April 2025. While such clo­sures could sig­nal con­trac­tion, in this case they per­haps rep­re­sent a piv­ot to­ward op­er­a­tional ef­fi­cien­cy as out­lined in its 2025 an­nu­al re­port which was post­ed on the T&T Stock Ex­change.

“As re­port­ed in our third quar­ter, The Home Store con­tin­ued to face de­clin­ing sales and stag­nat­ing mar­ket post the COVID-19 pe­ri­od. Ac­cord­ing­ly, the board took the de­ci­sion to re­struc­ture the Home Store’s re­tail busi­ness. We closed three stores in FY 2025: C3 and The Falls closed at the end of De­cem­ber 2024 and East Gates Mall closed at the end of March 2025.

“We re­tained the out­lets in Barataria and Ch­agua­nas, and we ex­pect these changes will lead to bet­ter re­sults for The Home Store...Hav­ing re­struc­tured The Home Store op­er­a­tions, we ex­pect im­proved re­sults for FY2026,” chair­man Law­ford Dupres de­tailed.

By con­cen­trat­ing ef­forts on two high-per­form­ing lo­ca­tions in Barataria and Pen­ny­wise Plaza, Ch­agua­nas, the com­pa­ny aims to in­crease the pro­duc­tiv­i­ty of its re­tail foot­print while re­duc­ing over­head.

No­tably, Barataria is be­ing lever­aged not just as a re­tail out­let but as an in­te­grat­ed dis­tri­b­u­tion hub, fur­ther stream­lin­ing back­end lo­gis­tics.

“As dis­cussed in our quar­ter­ly re­ports, the con­tin­ued de­cline in the econ­o­my has meant that con­sumers are fo­cused on es­sen­tial prod­ucts over dis­cre­tionary spend­ing and this has neg­a­tive­ly im­pact­ed our stores.

“The board made the de­ci­sion to down­size our re­tail op­er­a­tions in Trinidad and we closed three stores, leav­ing us with our main store in Barataria and the oth­er in Ch­agua­nas. This down­siz­ing will con­tin­ue in­to the first six months of FY2026 as our ware­hous­ing will be moved from our THS ware­house in Ma­coya to our Barataria lo­ca­tion and we are con­sid­er­ing our op­tions for the Ma­coya ware­house,” the man­ag­ing di­rec­tor’s re­port stat­ed.

In terms of mer­chan­dis­ing, The Home Store is em­brac­ing con­sumer lifestyle shifts by in­tro­duc­ing a trav­el and leisure cat­e­go­ry.

This fresh prod­uct line aligns with post-pan­dem­ic de­sires for mo­bil­i­ty, con­ve­nience, and re­lax­ation.

By tap­ping in­to this as­pi­ra­tional seg­ment, the brand is not on­ly di­ver­si­fy­ing its of­fer­ings but al­so cre­at­ing new rea­sons for con­sumers to vis­it its stores—be­yond tra­di­tion­al home goods shop­ping.

“We have in­tro­duced a new line of trav­el and leisure prod­ucts in­to the Home Store which we ex­pect will im­prove sales,” the re­port said as it em­pha­sised “These changes will re­turn The Home Store to prof­itabil­i­ty in FY 2026.”

Look­ing at oth­er as­pects of the re­port, it stat­ed that FY 2025 pre­sent­ed on­go­ing chal­lenges in sup­ply chain lo­gis­tics, with per­sis­tent sup­pli­er price in­creas­es and ship­ment de­lays im­pact­ing op­er­a­tions.

While sales re­mained flat, the com­pa­ny said a dis­ci­plined ap­proach to cost man­age­ment led to im­proved mar­gins for its food di­vi­sion.

“Our food di­vi­sion sales were flat but with an im­proved mar­gin due to bet­ter man­age­ment of costs. We have new line ex­ten­sions from our cur­rent sup­pli­ers to in­tro­duce this com­ing year and we are ex­pect­ing growth from this di­vi­sion,” the man­ag­ing di­rec­tor’s re­port added.

The hard­ware di­vi­sion gained mo­men­tum through strong ex­port ac­tiv­i­ty, re­flect­ing the glob­al reach of its prod­ucts.

Mean­while, the ship­ping di­vi­sion held steady, and the mo­men­tum from new­ly se­cured busi­ness is ex­pect­ed to trans­late in­to stronger re­sults in FY 2026.

“The hard­ware di­vi­sion did bet­ter due to strong ex­port or­ders. How­ev­er, we may not see this re­peat­ed as de­lays in man­u­fac­tur­ing and ship­ping re­sult­ed in our cus­tomers re­ceiv­ing their or­ders late in 2024.

“The ship­ping di­vi­sion’s sales re­main flat but new busi­ness gained ear­li­er this year will re­sult in an im­proved per­for­mance from this di­vi­sion for FY2026,” the re­port stat­ed.

Group sales for the fi­nan­cial year end­ed March 31, 2025, were $160.6 mil­lion, a de­cline of six per cent over FY2024.

Group op­er­at­ing prof­it was $7.14 mil­lion com­pared to $8.05 mil­lion for the pri­or year. How­ev­er, the com­pa­ny stat­ed its prof­it be­fore tax was $2 mil­lion com­pared to $1.64 mil­lion in the last year. The de­cline in group sales was at­trib­ut­able to low­er sales in The Home Store.

For the nine months end­ing De­cem­ber 31, 2024 LJ Williams Ltd re­port­ed a prof­it af­ter tax of $2.422 mil­lion com­pared to $3.813 mil­lion for the com­par­a­tive pe­ri­od in 2023.

De­spite re­cent fi­nan­cial head­winds, in­clud­ing de­clin­ing sales at some lo­cal out­lets, LJ Williams has found new mo­men­tum in Guyana, sig­nalling its in­tent to strength­en its re­gion­al foot­print.

“We opened our sec­ond store in Goed­ver­wagt­ing in Oc­to­ber 2024 which has re­sult­ed in high­er sales and an ex­pect­ed prof­itable po­si­tion for FY2026.

“The new lo­ca­tion at 20,000 sq ft al­so dou­bles as our ware­house and is suit­able for fu­ture ex­pan­sion in any oth­er busi­ness that could pro­vide us growth op­por­tu­ni­ties as the econ­o­my con­tin­ues to grow,” the man­ag­ing di­rec­tor’s re­port ex­plained.

The short­age of for­eign ex­change con­tin­ues to be a dom­i­nant con­cern for the busi­ness.

How­ev­er, it said “for­tu­nate­ly” its sup­pli­ers have been af­ford­ing the com­pa­ny some lee­way, not­ing it has been able to main­tain its cred­it stand­ing.

The com­pa­ny added US tar­iff have not yet im­pact­ed its ma­jor sup­pli­ers, who con­tin­ue to work­ing to mit­i­gate the im­pact by sourc­ing from oth­er coun­tries.