Lingerie firm Pour Moi grows 200% with pandemic boost
UK-based lingerie and swimwear company Pour Moi has seen a 200% spike in lingerie sales during the pandemic as customers looked to spice up their bedroom attire.
The founder of Pour Moi said he saw customer numbers soar to support sales reaching £31m in the 12 months to the end of September, up 46 per cent, following a 61 per cent jump in the same period in 2019.
Several successive UK lockdowns meant Brits were trapped inside, so demand for nightwear soared.
Founder Michael Thompson started the business around 17 years ago after he discovered a passion for lingerie whilst working in the department at M&S.
The company has high repeat uptake figures, boasting 72 per cent retention rates, measured by a repeat or return purchase in the year following first purchase.
Underlying pre-tax profits have more than trebled since before the pandemic, including a 75 per cent jump in the past year to £2.7m.
Thompson said: “Like a lot of people, for the first couple of months of the pandemic we were terrified.”
“The biggest terrifying thing for us was that 80% of our business was swimwear, it was like having cassette player and having loads of cassettes in your warehouse, then finding out everyone has gone to streaming.”
“Straight into Covid we definitely saw our sexy lingerie sales spike, and then it went into more everyday lingerie because the stores were closed,” Thompson added.
“It is mad, everything, every customer need changed overnight and then has changed back again, and then will change again, we are constantly trying to keep up with it and it’s so exciting.”
Pour Moi also experienced a 154 per cent increase in e-commerce website sales compared with 2019 figures. During the final three months of 2021 growth increased by 297 per cent from 2019.
The brand gained notoriety in 2015 after Samantha Cameron, English businesswoman and ex-Prime Minister David Cameron’s wife, wore a Pour Moi bikini on a trip to Ibiza.
