// Theo Paphitis Retail Group has seen a resurgence in store performance, with plans to continue its investment in stores and online
// The Boux Avenue and Ryman owner did warn on possible headwinds throughout 2023
Theo Paphitis Retail Group has seen a resurgence in store performance, with plans to continue its investment in stores and online, but the Boux Avenue and Ryman owner did warn on possible headwinds throughout 2023.
In the six weeks to 24 December Christmas 2022, trading saw performance made up of +5.5% growth in stores and -9.7% in e-commerce as store sales as a share of total business increased from 62.2% to 65.8%.
Total Group sales were level with 2021, with growth in stores across all brands, performing particularly well in the ‘second half’ of the Christmas trading period, as customers returned to stores following the pandemic.
But the chairman of Robert Dyas and Boux Avenue Theo Paphitis said the group expects “the headwinds caused by the global economic and political environment to make 2023 another challenging year”.
“We have seen through previous difficult trading periods that customers still respond to retailers providing the right products, convenience and service. It may well be argued that, with a combined history of 280 years, Ryman and Robert Dyas have experienced almost everything that can be thrown at business and retail.”
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Boux Avenue continued its improvement seen in the previous year with a 43.2% increase in turnover to £67.1m.
This was also an increase on pre-pandemic sales of 56.2%. An EBITDA loss of only £0.3m, which is a significant improvement on previous years.
Ryman returned to profitability following the impact of the pandemic on its key customer groups and store locations. Growth in turnover of 40.8% to £102.8m resulted in an EBITDA profit of £1.3m compared with a previous year loss of £8.5m a positive swing of £9.8m.
Robert Dyas saw growth across both channels delivered an increase in turnover of 34.4% from £122.5m to £164.6m, resulting in an EBITDA profit of £2.5m, up from the previous year EBITDA loss of £700k.
Theo Paphitis added: “There is no doubt that the resilience and creativity of retail has been significantly tested over the last 3 years. I am, therefore, pleased with how our brands and colleagues have responded to the challenges of the pandemic which was closely followed by other significant negative economic and political factors in 2022.
“We saw a recovery in turnover and profit across all of our brands in the financial year to March 2022, as our customers returned to stores and we were pleasantly surprised to see more of a swing to this channel than expected. Although this seems to have been a market wide trend out of the pandemic, I also credit our colleagues serving our customers over the years for making our stores a retail destination for receiving both great products and service.”
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