Variety goods e-tailer TheHut.com has seen sales rocket 54.3 per cent to £66.2 million over its first half, it has been announced today.
For the six months ended June 30th 2012, EBITDA jumped from £300,000 to £4 million as the group strengthened its multichannel offering.
Visitors to the group‘s websites rose 37.8 per cent over the period to 44.1 million as the group invested in its technology platform, launching a new optimised single page checkout, simplifying basket checkouts to allow for conversion rate improvement while also introducing international payment options to support growth.
Exiting from “legacy low margin music and books categories” as well as white label activity has driven the enhanced margin performance.
The e-tailer has appointed Martin O‘Grady, who previously worked at Exel Logistics, as Group Operations Director and has successfully integrated its supply chains and technology platform following the acquisitions of Lookfantastic and Myprotein, which were both acquired over the last 18 months.
The Hut Group Chairman Andrew Munro said:“Management has successfully integrated two large acquisitions in the past 18 months whilst at the same time delivering substantial organic sales and earnings growth.
“The strong trading performance of the business is testament to the calibre of the management team and the strength of the business model.”
Matthew Moulding, The Hut Group CEO, agrees that the e-tailer has demonstrated the strength of its proposition through its robust trading performance.
He said: “The Group is positioned as market leader in a number of differentiated and high growth sectors with significant barriers to entry.
“The combination of our market positioning and constant advances in customer insight through data analytics is driving both customer and revenue growth.
“The Group‘s gross margin progression is very pleasing and now that we have integrated recent acquisitions and are delivering significant operating leverage, the EBITDA progression is a major highlight.”
