Profits surge 78% to £71.7 million; Very.co.uk now represents over 1,100 brands.
Shop Direct – the winner of The Radar Award at this year’s Licensing Awards (for retailers who have really ramped up their licensing activity in the last year) – has reported a third consecutive year of record profits.
The UK’s second biggest online pureplay retailer has grown profits by 78% to £71.7 million for the year ending June 30, 2015.
This was driven by a combination of strong sales growth, a successful move to being a 100% digital retailer and better discipline across selling, costs and credit risk.
Group sales were up 3% to £1.8 billion (2013/14: £1.7 billion).
Very.co.uk is the UK’s fastest growing department store, with 1,100 brands and 70,000 lines now on offer across clothing, footwear, electrical, home, furniture and seasonal, which includes gifts, beauty and toy.
Very.co.uk delivered sales growth of 21.1% with more than £850 million in sales.
In addition, mobile device sales are growing – they are up 51% for Very.co.uk and account for 59% of total online sales.
Web traffic has now broken the one million per day mark.
Alex Baldock, group CEO, said: “We passed some important milestones last year. We called time on the catalogue, and we are now a pureplay retailer dedicated to digital. We’ve transformed quickly to this more focused business – only three years ago, nearly three quarters of our sales were from catalogue customers.
“We’re also more focused on Very.co.uk and Littlewoods.com, made possible by the closure of our three smaller brands [Woolworths, Isme and K&Co].
“Four months in, we’ve made a strong start to the new financial year, too. We’re in good shape for the peak Christmas period, and we expect growth, discipline and transformation to drive another record year.”
(Pictured left to right: The Licensing Awards host Alexander Armstrong with Shop Direct’s Neil Mitchell (buyer, boys, construction and outdoor) and Andrea Gornall (senior buyer, toys and nursery).
