Online sales boost revenue and profits at Matalan
British fashion and homeware retailer Matalan has reported revenues reach £777.9m thanks to online sales boost.
Matalan’s sales jumped to almost £300m during the third quarter of its financial year, while the retailer’s profits also surged after being boosted by its online operations.
The Merseyside-headquartered retailer has posted revenues of £291.4m for the 13 weeks to November 27, 2021, up from the £244.8m it reported for the same period in 2020.
In the three completed quarters of its current financial year, Matalan’s revenues totalled £777.9m, a rise from £578.1m. The company’s pre-tax profits increased from £1.7m to £10.6 during the third quarter. Its pre-tax profits for the three quarters total £11m, up from a loss of £76.7m for the same period in 2020.
Executive chairman Steve Johnson said the results “reflect a strong performance in what continue to be challenging circumstances, not just for ourselves but for the broader sector”.
He added: “The flow of inbound stock has suffered delays and volatility, negatively impacting availability for customers.
“In addition, the UK logistics and labour markets have also suffered their own levels of heavy disruption, all adding significant extra costs for retailers.
“I’m pleased with the way in which our business has responded in managing these challenges, demonstrating unprecedented levels of agility in making stock available to customers as quickly and efficiently as possible.
“When ranges have become available there has been an extremely positive customer reaction with stock turning quicker than we’ve ever seen before.
“The reaction to our ladies ranges has been particularly strong although we know that with a more consistent level of availability we could have satisfied even more of the high level of customer demand we were seeing for the great quality, design and value that we are famous for. As a result of this strong customer reaction and despite the lateness of stock arriving into the UK, we were still able to grow full price sales in the third quarter by over 10%.
“Our strong stock management disciplines also enabled us to effectively re-shape our stock mix over the autumn months and enter the main winter sale on Boxing Day with volumes below those in recent years, protecting margins.
“We successfully completed the first phase of our multi-year digital transformation programme with the implementation of online batch picking and sortation automation within our Knowsley warehouse in October. This adds to the online fulfil from store capability that we rolled out in 2020.
“Together these investments have enabled a significant scaling of our online channel over the last two years, with annual online turnover now in excess of £200m.
“To further progress our ambition to be a truly multi-branded omnichannel lifestyle retailer, in December we announced a long-term partnership with THG Ingenuity, the market leading end to end tech solution provider.
Matalan has over 11 million customers.
