The opening of its first physical stores as led to Missguided slipping into the red in its annual report, despite sales skyrocketing by 75 per cent.
Accounts filed with Companies House this week show that sales at the millennial fashion retailer jumped to £205.8 million in the fiscal year ending March 26, 2017.
While online sales in the UK alone grew by 40 per cent, 42.5 per cent of the retailer’s turnover came from international sales thanks to more than 100 per cent digital sales growth in the US, France and Germany.
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However, Missguided slipped from an operating profit of £381,000 in 2016 to a £1.45 million loss this year.
Total profit also swung from £239,000 in the previous financial year to a total loss of £1.39 million this year.
It attributed the loss to its expansion into physical retail, when it opened stores in Westfield Stratford City in London and Bluewater shopping centre in Kent during the full-year period.
The bricks-and-clicks retailer said the set up costs for those two stores meant its retail operation lost £2.4 million.
Missguided also invested heavily on advertising campaigns – including those that featured influencer Baddie Winkle and collaborations with model Jourdan Dunn – which it attributed to a rise in active customer numbers from 1.9 million to 2.8 million.
Its capital infrastructure also saw improvements, with a move to a new warehouse facility in Manchester incurring £4.8 million in fit-out costs, along with investments in Missguided’s systems, websites and back offices.
Its employee numbers also rose, from around 290 to close to 430 by the end of the financial year.
