Superdry sold more products to its wholesale customers in the third Christmas quarter of its financial year – but its direct sales to customers fell through both its own website and its own stores.
The multichannel fashion retailer, ranked Top100 in IRUK Top500 research, reported global brand revenue of £479.6m in the 13 weeks to January 26. That’s up by 5.4% on the same time last year. But group revenue of £269.3m was 1.5% down on last time. Among its retail channels, only wholesale was in growth, with sales of £73.5m up by 12.7%. Ecommerce sales of £69m (-0.7%) and store sales of £126.8m (-8.5%) were both down. Store space increased by 2.6% to 1.2bn m2 at the same time.
The retailer said that group sales were affected by “ongoing legacy product issues” and warm weather throughout the quarter, but that forward wholesale orders were strong. Its own online sales were affected as it discounted less in some markets. However, Superdry also said that it was reporting its online sales net of online returns processed in stores for the first time.
Superdry chief executive Euan Sutherland said: “Superdry’s performance has remained subdued during quarter three. We continued to be impacted by the ongoing product and relevance issues we have previously highlighted and by the lack, until the end of quarter three and the start of quarter four, of any prolonged period of cold weather in our key markets. We are pleased with the early progresss being made with our transformation programme, designed to reset the business and deliver a return to higher levels of growth and profitability.”
The retailer said it was working to cut costs by £50m by its 2022 financial year, and that a programme of work to improve brand architecture was also underway. Another programme is aimed at introducing a new and varied range of products.
Superdry sells in 61 countries, including North America and China, and has more than 5,000 staff around the world.
Image courtesy of Superdry
