Full Year Results

Strong year-on-year growth in both revenue and margin

Sosandar PLC (AIM: SOS), the online women’s fashion brand, is pleased to announce its financial results for the year ended 31 March 2019.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue increased 228% to £4.44m (2018: £1.36m)
• Gross margin improved to 55.5% (2018: 49.4%)
• Gross profit increased 268% to £2.44m (2018: £0.67m)
• EBITDA loss reduced to £3.49m (2018: £6.00m loss)
• Period-end cash balance of £3.64m

Operational highlights

• Order growth of 224% to 102,967 orders
• Conversion rate increased by 76bps to 2.92%
• Customer database grew 95% to 105,756
• Active customers increased by 185% to 62,214
• Increased number of new styles by 106% vs prior year and broadened size range
• Facebook and Instagram followings increased by 72% and 208% respectively
• Costs as a percentage of revenue significantly decreased

Performance against KPIs

Ali Hall and Julie Lavington, Co-CEOs, commented:

“We are delighted to be reporting a year of exceptional growth along with significant operational progress. We have expanded our product range and invested in highly effective customer acquisition, which together are driving ever growing repeat rates. We continue to inspire and excite our customers and once we recruit customers they are proving to be incredibly loyal and highly engaged with the brand, which will fuel future growth for the business.

“We are continuing to invest in the expansion of our product range, most recently making investment into specialist areas of footwear, accessories, knitwear and denim. Our social channels continue to expand rapidly, and we have seen an ever-growing army of high-profile celebrities wearing our clothes such as Amanda Holden, Kelly Brook and Natalie Pinkham. We have also been featured regularly in the national press from the Daily Telegraph to the Daily Mail as well as being featured regularly on ITV. Brand awareness continues to grow and most recently the fashion industry bible, Drapers recognised the brand, awarding Sosandar the prestigious accolade of Best New Online Business and Digital Team of the Year. Recent investment into specialist design areas and new factories will drive a larger product range going forward further enhancing choice for existing customers to continue increasing their frequency of purchase and broadening the appeal even further for new customer acquisition.

“The new financial year has started strongly and in line with our expectations with June setting a new record for the number of units sold in a month.  Repeat orders for Q1 increased 122% year on year and Q1 has seen c.23% year on year revenue growth. This revenue growth has been achieved through strong repeat business with deliberately less emphasis on new customer acquisition as external factors resulted in a tougher acquisition environment.  Being an agile e-commerce business, we have been able to respond quickly to external forces, making the prudent strategic decision to hold back funds to invest for customer acquisition in future months where we expect to achieve a better return on marketing spend.

“With a clear growth plan, we are confident in the outlook for the year and very excited about Sosandar’s long term prospects.”

Enquiries

About Sosandar PLC

Sosandar is an online womenswear brand, specifically targeted at a generation of women who have graduated from throwaway fashion and are looking for quality, affordable clothing with a premium, trend-led aesthetic. This is a section of the market that is currently being underserved.

Sosandar was launched in September 2016. The Sosandar business model is built around using trend-led, exclusive designs produced in-house and then manufactured using a variety of global suppliers. Sosandar caters for a growing market of fashion conscious women, while utilising an outsourced logistics provider that can support its planned growth over the coming years.

Sosandar's founders are Ali Hall and Julie Lavington, who previously launched and ran high street fashion magazine Look, as editor and publishing director respectively. They have a combined experience of over 35 years in the fashion industry, including in the design, manufacture and sale of fashion ranges for some of the UK's high street retailers, including Debenhams, Office, Oasis and JD Williams.

More information is available at www.sosandar-ir.com