// Sosandar has swung to a half-year profit posting a pre-tax profit of £77,000
// Black Friday saw a record number of visits to its site and the strongest sales week on record for its third-party partners
A strong first half performance has helped Sosandar swing from loss to profit and maintain its bullish progress in sales.
The Cheshire-based online fashion retailer saw turnover of £21m in the six months to September 30, 2022, representing a 72% increase on the same period a year ago.
A £77,000 pre-tax profit was compared with a £1.077m pre-tax loss last year, and is the company’s second six-month period of positive profit before tax.
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In the second half of the financial year, momentum continued with record sales months in October and November, trading in line with market expectations for the full financial year, of £42.8m of sales and a pre-tax profit of £2m.
The retailer had net cash of £4.2m as at September 30, against £7m a year ago, reflecting planned earlier delivery of autumn stock than the prior year to facilitate deliveries into third party partners.
During the reporting period, Sosanda saw orders on its website rise by 43% to 347,137, of which 80,935 were from brand-new customers and 266,202 were from existing shoppers.
The business also achieved a successful fast-track development of key products, with all identified lines meeting or exceeding internal expectations, as well as strong trading with third parties such as M&S, Next, John Lewis and The Very Group across all product categories.
Sosandar has reported a strong start to the second half of fiscal year 2023, with record sales months delivered in October and then November.
Black Friday saw a record number of visits to its site and the strongest sales week on record for its third-party partners, with margins increasing on the first half.
Co- chief executives Ali Hall and Julie Lavington, said: “We are very pleased to be reporting a strong performance for the six months ended 30 September 2022, with trading in line with our expectations for full year growth. Our continued revenue growth has enabled us to reach a significant milestone in delivering another six months of profitability, achieving a substantial swing from a loss of £1.1m in the same period last year to a profit before tax of £0.1m for the current period.
“This performance is a testament to the relevance of our strategy, unique and broad product offering and ever-increasing brand awareness, which has enabled us to continue to deliver for our customers, despite the challenging macroeconomic backdrop.”
They added: “Second half trading to date has built on the momentum we saw in the first half. Pleasingly, throughout October and November we delivered two record months of sales with this culminating in an extremely successful Black Friday period which saw a record number of visits to Sosandar.com and the strongest sales week on record for our third party partners, with margins increasing compared with the first half of the financial year. In addition, whilst discounts were on offer, gross margins remained stable resulting in two further months of profitability.
“Looking ahead, whilst the external environment remains challenging, it is important to note that, as a business, we have successfully mitigated many of the headwinds we have faced over the past two years. We have a brilliant brand, highly differentiated product that is in demand across all our channels and a great team who constantly execute our strategy well. We continue to trade in line with market expectations for the full year and remain confident in the longer term outlook for the business.”
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