Welcome to the Sosandar full year 2022 trading update webinar. All attendees are in listen only mode, and now there'll be a short update with the majority of time for questions. However, we do only have 30 minutes with management, so I'll give an email at the end should there be any outstanding questions we don't get time to cover. This webinar is being recorded. I now hand over to Julie Lavington and Ali Hall, Co-CEOs, and Steve Dilkes, CFO. Julie, over to you.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the call. As Tamzin said, here with me today is Alison Hall, Co-CEO, and our Chief Financial Officer, Steve Dilks. As with previous trading update calls, today we'll be providing a short summary of the update, followed by a Q&A session ending at 9:30 A.M. We are delighted to report that following a record performance in Q3, we have delivered another profitable quarter in Q4, with every single month in the second half being EBITDA positive. We've had extremely strong trading across all channels, resulting in us expecting to report annual revenue in excess of GBP 29 million. That's up 138% year on year, and an EBITDA loss for the full year reduced by over 80%. This record performance is testament to our strategy, unique product offering, and constantly increasing brand awareness.
Our product range, with new styles available daily and highly effective marketing, continues to drive fantastic growth with both new and repeat customers. Following this morning's announcement, our house broker, Singer Capital Markets, has published a research note on us that is accessible through Research Tree. Following a previous upgrade on the 30th of November, Singer's analyst forecast for the year to 31st of March, 2022 have now been upgraded again to GBP 29.1 million in revenue and an EBITDA loss of GBP 450,000.
Having raised money in May 2021, we put this to good use, building greater depth and breadth of stock across all product categories. This strategy has been executed to plan and led to an accelerated growth on our own site and by our concession partners. Our partnerships with John Lewis, Next, and M&S have gone from strength to strength, and we see substantial opportunities for further growth with each of them. Testament to the success with these arrangements to date, we're delighted to announce that we've extended our relationship with Next plc with Sosandar products to be sold through Next Platform Plus. We will launch this during Q1 FY 2023, allowing us to accelerate sales by selling an extended range with stock being picked from our own warehouse.
We are also really pleased to announce that following an approach by The Very Group, we commenced a wholesale agreement from March 2022 with strong sales and repeat orders quickly being placed. Selling Sosandar products through Very will further increase the brand's reach among our core target demographic and deliver incremental revenue and EBITDA growth. We've continued to leverage our agility in order to navigate external headwinds, including global supply chain challenges, which alongside margin gains driven by the business's growth, have resulted in no material impact to the business to date. I'll now pass over to Steve to pick out some highlights on the financial side.
Thank you, Ali. First and foremost, as Julie mentioned, we are delighted to report revenue in excess of GBP 29 million for the year ending March 31st, 2022, which is a 138% increase against the prior year. This extremely strong performance, together with our increasingly efficient operations, has resulted in an EBITDA positive second half, demonstrating the group's trajectory towards annual profitability. The way in which our product range is resonating with our customers can be seen by the increase in our sosandar.com KPIs. The number of orders increased by 84% year on year to 508,000, while repeat orders increased 93% to 367,000. Our conversion rate increased further to 3.9% from 3.1%. Average order frequency increased by 10% to 2.28x per annum.
In addition, we delivered average order value of GBP 90, which is up 9% from the GBP 83 posted in the prior year. The company has a strong cash position with net cash of GBP 7 million as of the 31st of March 2022, and we have good stock levels ahead of the spring season. On that note, I'll pass back to Julie for a quick overview of our current outlook.
Thank you, Steve. This has been a milestone year for Sosandar, and we are delighted with what the team has achieved over the past 12 months. We've successfully executed our strategy across our own site and third parties, building momentum in H2 and ultimately delivering our first six months of profitability, which is a pivotal moment for us all. The outlook for Sosandar is very positive, which is reflected by Singer's in their upgraded forecasts for FY 2023 and FY 2024. We are really excited by the future for the business, and we would now be delighted to take your questions.
Alan Charlton asked the question: May I ask what percentage of sales in the second half came through third parties?
Good morning, Alan. Thank you for your question. Steve, can I pass over to you to take that question?
Of course you can. Alan, good morning. In the second half, it was around a third of our net revenue was generated through the combination of our third-party partners, and that makes the full year proportion just under 30%. It's important to note that growth has been generated not only from third parties, but also our own site. The growth that we've delivered in the financial year has been driven by both our own site growing significantly as well as the growth of our third parties.
Thank you very much. Mark Crowther asks, "What planning do you have in place, or what plans are you considering for any projected recession or downturn in market conditions?
Okay. Good morning, Mark. Thank you for the question. I'll take that one. What we're seeing so far in terms of 'Cause a few people have asked us, have we seen any effect from the credit squeeze, I suppose, and people having less disposable income. We've seen no material impact to date from people spending less money on clothes. To a large degree, our customers are more protected from that because we do have a very affluent customer base. The rising cost of living has less of a severe effect on our customers' pockets. To date, we've not seen any effect on sales.
Of course, we watch that incredibly closely and are very, very mindful of it, because there is, you know, a steep increase in the cost of living in many different areas. The other thing that we would point to as well is that, while there is, you know, no doubt that people's pockets are squeezed, that to some degree, and certainly with our customers, the headwinds really coming from that are the opposite is happening because you've got the tailwinds of if you go back to a year ago when, you know, things were very difficult, people were locked down, we weren't going out, and we've pretty much had that now for two years.
What we've got currently is we've got the tailwinds of people going out more, going on holiday, going back to work. The tailwinds of people just needing more clothes because they've not been going out for the last two years.
Thank you. We've got a question from Philip Holnick, who asks, "Do you expect to break even for the financial year end?
Steve, can I pass that one to you?
I assume that we're talking about FY 2022, the year just ended. As Julie mentioned, we've posted revenue in excess of GBP 29 million, and we have posted a EBITDA positive performance in the second half of the year. While they are not our numbers, the numbers posted by Singer's this morning, they have us posting EBITDA for the last financial year of GBP 450,000 loss. That said, with the second half of the year being EBITDA positive, and that includes every individual month being positive EBITDA as well, it shows that trajectory toward being EBITDA positive in the next financial year, which is where we're heading toward.
Thank you. Paul Miskin goes on to ask, "Congrats on great progress." He says, "What's the priority going forward, revenue or EBITDA growth?
Good morning, Paul. Thank you for the question. Steve, can I pass that one to you as well?
Yeah, of course. I think it's both. I think EBITDA positive for us has been generated in H2 because we've had such a significant increase in revenue. In effect, one is driving the other because we start to see the effect of economies of scale. Just more widely, our operations become much more effective as our fixed cost base, along with all of the variable costs, for example, our marketing activities work more effectively because we're driving more revenue. I think to a degree, it's a combination of both. Clearly, though, we're really pleased with the performance we're posting, but the opportunities are significant for future growth as well. Not least, we've announced additional partnerships today. We think that both will be equal in importance.
We're driving revenue in terms of active customer growth, but also growth with our strategic third parties as well, which in turn will drive further EBITDA positive.
Thank you very much. Alan Charlton asks, "I understand Turkey is a major source of supply. I note that Turkish inflation is running at about 61%, but also their currency's collapsed. How has this affected us?
Steve, I think that's one for you again as well.
Not materially. Clearly, there's lots of challenges, isn't there, going on in their local economy. I think first and foremost, the route of supply from Turkey has been unhindered. I think that's point one to make. Stock has been landing as planned on time in full, and that continues to be the case in our expectations as we move forward. From an economic perspective, our buy prices are agreed up front, prior to seasons, and so those are continued to be maintained. There's ups and downs there, isn't there, in terms of currency, but also in terms of inflation, but our buy prices have been set. I think the other aspect that our scale is helping us to deliver is improved quantities.
Our commitment to our suppliers is growing in terms of volumes that we purchase per season, and that in itself helps us to improve further the buy prices. That's an applicable point, of course, across all of our supply chain, including Turkey.
Thank you. Philip asks again, do you have an estimate for your inventory turnover ratio?
Sorry, Steve. That's one for you again as well.
Not at all. No, don't worry. Two key things on stock, really. I'm not necessarily gonna answer it in the way that you've asked the question, if you don't mind. What I will say, though, is our focus is on making sure that we've got good stock, not just stock, but the stock that we've got is good stock, it's relevant stock, it's relevant for the season, and that stock is turning incredibly quickly. We land stock every day, pretty much. The customer is getting a lot of newness, and it's important that that stock turns quickly, which we then turn into either repeat buys or further newness that's available for our customers. Key point here is about making sure that we've got the right level of stock cover for future demand.
When we sat here at the end of March, we're always looking at our demand curve for April and early May and making sure that we've got the right stock available to meet our targets that are coming around the corner. If you don't mind, I'm not gonna answer that in terms of numbers today, but hasten to add, we're really pleased with the level of stock that we've got at the end of March. It's the right amount of stock for what we're projecting for in April and May, and that's continued to be the case actually over the last 12 months or so.
If you look at the whole year, we've landed stock on time in full, and it's that increasing of stock and the constant investment in stock post the raise last May that's helped us to drive the growth that we're posting today. There's no reason to suspect that will materially change going forward because we've delivered that through the last financial year.
Thank you very much. We've got a very long question from Leon Boros with lots of website stats. We're just summarizing this in: Can you comment on your Sosandar specific website visits and analytics trends over 2020 to 2022? Sort of, are they going up, down or what's happening?
I'll take that question. All our KPIs are in an upward trajectory. Starting with traffic, first of all. Traffic has risen every year since 2020. Conversion rate has risen every year since 2020, and they are the two really key stats because, one, it makes it, you're getting more people are visiting the website, and then of the people that are visiting the website, more and more people are converting. They're probably two of the key stats that we would look at. In terms of average order value, as Steve mentioned, the average order value has increased marginally on last year. I don't have the number for 2020 in front of me, but it would be broadly around the same kind of level, if not marginally up.
In terms of the number of items per basket, that remains pretty constant at just below two. Steve, were there any other stats that you can think of that I would have missed there?
No, not in terms of stats. I think the only thing I would add, if we're looking at over that two- or even three-year horizon, the pivotal thing that's helped to drive substantial improvement in our KPIs is product choice for the customer. If we look back to the pre-pandemic time, Sosandar was very strong in work wear, formal wear, dresses in particular. Today, the range is incredibly diverse. All main women's wear categories are covered, and it's that product choice, coupled with our marketing activities and the constant refinement of that's really driving improvement in or has driven the improvement in those KPIs.
The customer choice, both in terms of newness but also in terms of diversity of the product mix, is really strong, and it's that that helps the customer to come back more and more often because we're fulfilling more of their wardrobe needs.
Thank you. Richard Straffan asks, to what extent are you concerned by lots of other brands finding success on the third party sites, M&S, Next, et cetera? Are you concerned that seemingly more brands are following your excellent strategy?
Ali, can I pass that one over to you?
I'm not quite sure I understood the gist of it. Is it saying that are we worried about our site, our product being on other sites rather than our own or other people going on sites with Marks & Spencer, et cetera?
Other competitors to you imitating the way that you're distributing and therefore becoming more competitive to you.
Yeah, I don't think that's something that we're worried about. I mean, obviously with all those partners, especially when you look at Next, there were a lot of brands on those companies before we went on them. I think the main thing is we're doing extremely well with all three partners and a key strategic company with all three partners because our product is so differentiated. We're not sat on there with brands who are doing the same thing as us because we have a new unique product.
I mean, even when we first launched on those sites, I mean, a lot of customers wouldn't have known what brand was at that time because we were very small, but they were still buying our clothes and finding our clothes despite there being lots of other brands on there because the product is so differentiated. No, I think for us, all three parties are successful. We're really looking forward to.
Working with Very as well, and we've extended our partnership with Next, as we've said, because we believe that there's absolutely loads of huge potential and growth within all those three parties, regardless of whether other brands are in there or not.
Thank you. Leading on from that, Alan Charlton asks, "The new deal with Next, which allows you to pick stock from your own warehouse, this is a fantastic development. Congratulations. Will this ultimately allow the full Sosandar range to be available on the Next site?
I'll take that question. Yes, ultimately, it could. If we want it to, that would give access to our entire range. We're going to be starting initially with, I mean, quite a large proportion of our range, but not the entirety of it. We don't particularly see any negatives in offering the full range to Next. It's just that from a logistics point of view, we will take it slowly and not offer the entire range right at the very beginning. The beauty of it really is, as much as they're offering great choice, obviously, on Next and great choice for future growth is it enables us to test new product on Next with a very low risk.
Rather than us having to take a chance on a brand-new product and ship stock into their warehouse, it means that their customers have got access to more products that maybe we haven't, is brand new, and we're able to get a feel very early on whether Next customers are responding to that product, and therefore it mitigates risk in trialing new product.
Thank you. Mark Sherlock asks, "How large can turnover grow within all current constraints that exist now in the business, i.e. what size can Sosandar grow to before significant capital expansion would be required?
I'll answer partly that, and I'll pass over to Steve, I think, to add any other comments. I would say there are no limits to how big you can grow an e-commerce business because it is about just reaching. It's about the growth and the expansion of the product range, and it is then about finding growing within existing markets and finding new markets, whether that's selling on our own website or selling with third-party partners. There are no limits, I would say. You know, it's very much within our sights for Sosandar to be one of the biggest fashion brands, women's fashion brands in the U.K. I think we're making very fast leaps forward in achieving that ambition.
There is also huge potential for Sosandar to expand internationally, and absolutely no reason at all why it couldn't be, you know, a dominant fashion, you know, fashion player, broadly in the wider world. The success that we've seen, I think, with third parties as well, as Ali mentioned, when we launched on Next, John Lewis and M&S, Sosandar is, in relative terms, still a, you know, relatively small brand, and it would have been unknown to many of those many people that were shopping on those sites. Naturally, because of our product and our, and the way we portray that product, i.e. our imagery, the way we shoot the product, we instantly saw success with those customers.
Their customers were buying our product because they wanted the product. That same principle, we are confident holds true for when we do expand internationally, that even though the brand wouldn't necessarily be known internationally, the product is very highly differentiated, that our product speaks for itself and the product can drive the awareness of the brand. I would say, no limits to what, to how much we can grow. Steve, I don't know whether you'd add anything to that.
Just a footnote really to do with the operational drivers that will enable the significant growth into the future. Julie, Ali, and I, along with the rest of the senior team, spend a lot of time looking at the enablers to growth for the future and making sure that everything is in place to enable that to happen. Whether that is our warehouse capacity, whether it's the right logistics partners, whether it's our supplier base, those topics of conversation take place all the time as a matter of course in our business, to make sure that we've got an eye on next year, the year after that, and the year after that, to make sure that the planning that's required to enable significant growth is all in good shape, really. There are no barriers.
Just as a snippet, one of the reasons we choose to work with a third-party logistics provider, in the case of Clipper, in our case, is because they've got the capacity to support our growth, as opposed to, say, doing your own warehousing, which would have some real challenges to accelerate. Because we're in a shared facility and because we're working with experts in their field, we're able to significantly ramp up capacity and scale in by working with them. That's just an example, I suppose, where we've made really good judgments and decisions to support our growth trajectory.
Thank you. Leading on from there, Tom Croft asks, "What's the latest on international expansion? Are there plans in the next financial year to expand overseas?
Ali, shall I pass that one over to you?
Yeah, I mean, definitely, as Julie and Steve both mentioned, we see this opportunity for Sosandar being international and not just in the U.K. We are currently in research mode, really, with regards to taking the brand overseas. There's nothing imminent. However, our research is focused on ensuring that we do this in the right way in order to drive sustained profitable growth. Yes, it might be that we do this through partners, but we'd have to make sure if we did that again, it was the right strategic fit for Sosandar in the same way that with all our U.K. partners, we've made sure that's the case as well. There's nothing absolutely imminent, but we're definitely in research mode.
Thank you very much. That's the end of questions. Julie, do you have any closing remarks?
Only to say thank you very much, everyone, for joining us this morning. Delighted to answer all your questions, and we very much look forward to updating you all again at our full year results in July.
Many thanks, Julie, Ali, and Steve, and to you all for joining. This is the end of the webinar.