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Sosandar PLC on Tuesday said it swung to a small half-year profit as revenue soared, while it said it started the second half of the financial year strongly.
The Cheshire, England-based fashion brand said pretax profit in the six months that ended September 30 was £77,000, swinging from a loss of £1.1 million a year earlier. Sosandar noted this was the second consecutive six-month period in which it recorded a pretax profit, having also done so in the second half of financial 2022.
This is because revenue was up 72% to £21.0 million in the recent half-year from £12.2 million a year before. Sosandar said this growth was split equally between its own website and third-party partners such as Marks & Spencer, Next, John Lewis and Very Group.
The number of orders on Sosandar.com rose by 43% to 347,137 from 242,991, of which 80,935 were from new customers and 266,202 from existing customers.
Sosandar added it started the second half of its financial 2023 strongly, with record sales months delivered in October and November. It cited Black Friday as bringing about a record number of visits to Sosandar.com and its strongest sales week on record for third-party partners.
Products across all categories are selling well post-period, Sosandar said, noting that fast-tracked categories such as partywear, knitwear and outwear as performing particularly strongly.
‘Looking ahead, whilst the external environment remains challenging, it is important to note that as a business, we have successfully mitigated many of the headwinds we have faced over the past two years...We continue to trade in line with market expectations for the full year and remain confident in the longer-term outlook for the business,’ said co-chief executive officers Ali Hall and Julie Lavington.
Net cash on September 30 was down 40% to £4.2 million from £7.0 million on March 31, which Sosandar said reflected planned earlier delivery of autumn stock than in the previous year.
This was because it wanted to facilitate deliveries to third-party partners, alongside starting to import more via sea freight, which changed its working capital cycle, realised significant cost benefit and reduced environmental impact, it said.
Shares in Sosandar were down 1.1% to 22.25 pence each in London on Tuesday afternoon.
By Greg Rosenvinge, Alliance News reporter
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