Online and Europe growth add to powerful UK stores performance for Yours Clothing

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Apr 30, 2018

UK plus-size retailer Yours Clothing had a storming year in the 12 months to January 28 with revenues surging by 22%. Both store and online sales were strong and it managed to increase the gross margin by 5.5 ppts.

The company, which says it’s Britain’s fastest-growing name in the plus-size category, said total sales reached £88.3 million with e-tail turnover up a strong 26%, but even physical stores sales powering ahead by as much as 20%. 

Of course, much of the physical stores growth was accounted for by new locations as the firm opened 30 new stores during the period for a total of 130 by year-end. And a further five have opened in FY19 so far.

The company is truly omnichannel with e-tail now making up 41% of sales altogether and the online increase was driven by “continued improvements to [its] platform and website content as well as the popularity of click & collect and order-in-store fulfilment options.”

Its menswear label BadRhino also saw a 27% sales increase and while this remains a tiny part of the business at just 4% of total turnover, the brand launched with Tesco in November and started selling online with Zalando, in December. Yours said it’s pleased by the reaction to the menswear collections so far and is “in discussions with other partners to further capitalise on the clear growth opportunities in this significant market.”

Importantly too, the company is making good progress abroad with its international turnover rising an impressive 48%, albeit from a very low base, to make up 7% of sales. It sells through 10 stores internationally including its first wholly-owned international store that opened in Dublin after the year-end.

In addition, it launched a number of country specific websites in the US, Germany, Netherlands, Ireland, France, Australia, Poland and Russia during the last year, “which are all performing well, with particularly strong performances in Germany and France.”

And what did all this mean for the bottom line? Gross profit rose 35% to £52.5 million with pre-tax profit of £6.6 million. The company had made a pre-tax loss of £1.9 million the year before, although that included a £1.2 million one-off cost in relation to stock management system changes.

It’s clearly positioning itself for further growth and has been ramping up its staff number by over 10% to 1,100 at present. It also continues to invest in its infrastructure with the “probable purchase” of a new warehouse facility in Peterborough which it intends to transfer to in the year ahead. 

Founder and CEO Andrew Killingsworth said: “Yours Clothing delivered an excellent performance. Yours has a loyal and increasing customer base and with growing momentum in the UK and online. We are well positioned to capitalise on further opportunities in our core business as well as internationally and across our menswear range.”