Strong consumer growth helped online resale titan Systemax enjoy a solid third quarter, with sales and profit more-or-less flat.

The New York-based firm, which closed the acquisition of UK VAR WStore shortly before the quarter ended, saw global revenue rise 2 per cent annually to $753.9m (£452m). Operating profit for the three months to the end of September stood at $19.4m, five per cent down on Q3 2008.

Systemax, which also owns Wellingborough-based online reseller Misco, had to stomach $1m in pre-tax charges in Q3 2009. These were related to the WStore acquisition and the company's exit of the hosted software market.

Third quarter consumer revenue grew by a tenth year on year to $426.2m but business- to-business sales dropped seven per cent to $323.7m. North American technology sales enjoyed an 11 per cent spike and stood at $500m in Q3. But European tech revenue declined by the same amount, dropping to $201.8m.

Industrial product sales fell 18 per cent to $52m, while software revenue was cut in half, standing at just $100,000. Systemax chief executive Richard Leeds claimed US chains CompUSA and Circuit City continued to open new branches and grow sales.

"Our consumer channels in North America reported our strongest results. We are broadening our reach in the consumer electronics market, both through our retail stores and our e-commerce websites," he said.

"Our business-to-business channel operations - including Misco in western Europe and Global Industrial in the US - are still generally impacted by the worldwide economic slowdown; however, we are now cautiously optimistic that we have seen the bottom. We continue making prudent investments to improve our positioning while carefully controlling our costs."