Sosandar posts half year loss despite growth in revenue
Women’s fashion retailer Sosandar has seen its first-half net revenue increase by 6% to £22.2 million following strong growth in sales on its own website and through third party retailers.
However, the retailer swung to a pre-tax loss of £1.3 million in the period from a profit of £0.1 million in the first half of the previous year. Sosandar attributed this to a managed reduction in price promotional activity across its own site and higher staff costs as it positions itself for its next stage of growth.
During the half year, the retailer delivered a strong sales performance on its own website and also became one of the top-selling brands across third-party partners, including Next and M&S.
Ali Hall and Julie Lavington, co-chief executives of Sosandar, said: “Over the past six months, we have made significant steps on our journey to become a multichannel retailer whilst also expanding the reach of the Sosandar brand.
“We are delighted to have launched new partnerships with Sainsbury’s and Freemans, signed our first agreements with two large prestigious international third-party partners and announced that we intend to open our first own stores in spring 2024.”
Giving an update on current trading, Sosandar said November was a record of month of trading and that net revenue for October and November rose by 16% to £10.2 million.
Hall and Lavington added: “Trading in the second half of the financial year to date has been encouraging, in line with full year market expectations, with November a record month of trading. This strong performance has been delivered across all our channels.
“Looking ahead, we believe that the future is very bright as we take the Sosandar brand to more customers across the UK and worldwide and move further towards reaching our strategic goal of delivering £100m+ revenues and a pre-tax profit margin of at least 10% in the medium term.”
