Multichannel retailer Joules today unveiled plans for a London stockmarket flotation, and says it will use the proceeds to expand at home and abroad.
The multichannel fashion to homewares retailer, ranked in the Top100 of IRUK Top500 research, said ecommerce and new store openings helped group revenues to grow by 50% to £116.4m between its 2013 and 2015 financial years. Now it aims to grow customer numbers and the value and frequency of their spending through a “balanced multichannel proposition” that sees 46% of sales take place through stores, 22% through ecommerce and 27% through wholesale. Joules has 98 stores in the UK has opened an average of 12 a year in the last three years, and plans to open more.
Some 38% of the 2m customers on its database have bought in the last 12 months. That’s up from 33% in May 2015. It describes its target, female, customer is aged between 25 and 54 years, and is shopping for themselves and the family, and it uses social media from Facebook and Twitter to Instagram and Pinterest to engage both her and the growing numbers of men and younger customers who are buying. It aims to target and personalise its communications and website content as it looks to recruit, retain and develop customers, while also improving its single view of the customer.
International sales of £10.6m saw growth of 198% between 2013 and 2015, and the company aims to see 20% of all sales made abroad, from about 10% in the nine months to the end of February 2016. Via wholesale, its products are sold through John Lewis and Next’s third-party Label brand, and the company says it uses forward wholesale orders to learn what its bestsellers are likely to be, and inform the selection sold via its website and stores.
Joules chief executive Colin Porter said: “Joules is a distinctive, established and fast-growing lifestyle brand and we are delighted to announce our intention to list on AIM as an exciting new phase in the brand’s development.
“Joules has a rare heritage and a strong presence across clothing and lifestyle product categories. Since the brand’s foundation more than 26 years ago, Joules has enjoyed strong, consistent growth developing into the much-loved fun, family, ‘time-off’ lifestyle brand it is today. We have a clear strategy to develop the brand further and we see real potential for continued growth across channels both in our core UK market and internationally.”
The retailer was founded in 1989 by Tom Joule, who will continue as an executive director of the listed company, while Neil McCausland will continue as non-executive chairman.
