Footwear retailers Shoe Zone (LON:SHOE) saw shares soar over 10 percent this morning, as upgrading of its stores and international expansion increase investor sentiment.

The company’s revenue fell by 3.5 percent to £166.8 million, with profit before tax also falling by 2.4 percent. The company cited “difficult trading conditions” as a reason for the lower performance.

However, Shoe Zone have restructured their manufacturing and are in the process of upgrading stores in order to boost future sales – the company are opening 12 new stores and currently refitting 40 of their existing. The launch of a new website has increased online traffic conversion rates to 66 percent, as well as starting to sell internationally through Amazon and eBay.

Shoe Zone’s CEO Anthony Smith said the group had seen a “solid performance”, commenting:

“There is extensive work underway to increase the Grade 1 store portfolio and we are targeting an additional 56 stores to be operational by the beginning of February.

“We are also excited to be trialling “Project Big Box” in August 2016 which will involve three stores that will be twice the average size of a Grade 1 store. The trial stores will benefit from an extended product range, higher priced footwear and will allow us to benefit from the out of town market.”

Shoe Zone are currently trading up 11.71 percent at 186 pence per share. (1056GMT)

13/01/2016