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Eve Sleep sets direct-to-consumer approach that challenges traditional retailers

Eve Sleep says its disruptive direct-to-consumer approach has helped it to lift sales by 132% in the last year.

The retailer this week reported revenue of £27.7m in 2017, up from £12m in the previous year. At the bottom line, it reported pre-tax losses of £19m, widening from £11.3m a year earlier, but predicted a profit in the UK market in the fourth quarter of this year.

Eve Sleep describes its business as selling premium mattresses and related products direct to shoppers, and the relative newcomer has an eye on new opportunities as, it predicts, the £26 billion sleep market continues to move online.

During 2017 it widened its product range from four to 15 products, and now aims to become the leading pan-European sleep brand. It says its approach lies in challenging a customer proposition that has been “tired and unchanged” for many years, as has the “vertically integrated, high fixed cost business model pursued by many of the more established larger operators”.

“The eve strategy is focused on winning share from traditional operators in the £26bn European sleep market, as the transition from offline to online purchase accelerates over the next few years,” it said in this week’s figures. “Forecasts by Euromonitor expect the online furniture market to be the second fastest growing category, growing +55% between 2017 and 2022. The company remains confident that it has a customer proposition, direct to consumer focused agile business model and a fast growing brand that is sufficiently strong and differentiated to win in this transition.”

Over the last year it has worked with retailers including Next Homeware and Debenhams as well as Germany’s Karstadt to sell via multichannel retailers. As a result, it said in today’s figures, “the number of physical stores offering eve products in the UK and Germany has increased from one to 145 by the end of the year.”

“Our results to date demonstrate that we have a winnable customer proposition in both the UK and Continental Europe and have a management team that can execute,” said chief executive Jas Bagniewski. “We are still targeting to achieve UK profitability at the end of 2018 and group profitability by the end of 2019.”

Screenshot by Chloe Rigby for InternetRetailing|

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