Bellweather domestic lubes producer, WD-40, reports a difficult 12 months.
The company reported a tough year end in August 2012. Seales of all of its popular brands including WD-40®, 3-IN-ONE® and BLUE WORKS® fell five percent on the previous year. Other WD-40 brands, including homecare and cleaning products, are now being defined as 'harvest brands' and have become a smaller part of the business.
Foreign currency exchange rates had a negative impact on net sales in Q4, with a 6.5% year-on-year drop, although they rose by almost two percent for th year as a whole.
An increase in general costs, combined with a rise in advertising and sales promotion expenses played a part in the disappointing figures. Other contributing factors were economic volatility, fluctuation in oil prices, turbulent business conditions in Europe and other input costs, according to the company. "We saw some sales that we expected to come in during the fourth quarter slip into the first quarter of fiscal year 2013, particularly in Europe," said Garry Ridge of WD-40.
The new WD-40 Specialist product has been launched into several countries worldwide and the Company has now developed the WD-40 Bike™ product line of bicycle maintenance products for cyclists and mechanics.