Morning. Welcome to the half- year results for Victorian Plumbing, for the six months ending 31st of March 2023. Quick overview, the agenda. We'll go through an overview, then we'll go through the half- year results, the key drivers and strategic progress, current trading and outlook, and then some time at the end for Q&A. Start with the overview. H1 revenue growth of 10% as the group demonstrates continued trading momentum. To further strengthen our position as the U.K.'s number one retailer for bathroom products. Shipping costs and foreign exchange improvements have aided gross profit and margin progression. Efficiency gains in marketing activity, while securing, you know, continued market share gains. Our well-defined strategy remains focused on core B2C trade and adjacent products. Successful migration and launch of a re-platformed website without any issues or downtime.
Agreement to lease a new 544,000 sq ft purpose-built warehouse, which is under construction. This creates capacity for further strategic growth. We've declared our first interim ordinary dividend with a strong cash generation. Continued confidence in medium-term targets with the growth opportunity. Hand over to Dan for some financial information.
My first set of results, but I thought it was worth reminding ourselves and our investors of what makes the Victorian Plumbing business model so special. We continue to be number one bathroom retailer in the U.K., as Mark said. The shift from offline to online continues to grow the TAM, which we're really well placed to take more share of. There's a customer focus in everything that we do. We use our proprietary technology and knowledge of our products to offer the widest range and the best availability, and that's evidenced by our Trustpilot rating as excellent. It's a key non-financial KPI, and it's always front of mind in everything that we do. Our robust balance sheet, strong cash generation, and industry-leading margins all underpin our profitability, and that supports the future growth ambition and attractive shareholder returns.
There's opportunity for growth in core B2C in our trade offering and across adjacent categories, all powered up by our new DC. There's plenty to go at in the U.K. In the medium term, we can take that model to the right international markets at the right time. Taking each highlight in turn, we're pleased with growth of 10% during the period, delivering revenues of GBP 147 million. Gross profit increased by 14% to GBP 67 million, with further momentum from shipping and FX driving a 2 percentage point improvement in margin. Less competitive pressure facilitates reduced marketing spend, aiding further profit improvement with adjusted EBITDA growth of 48% to GBP 10 million, margin improvement of 2 percentage points.
There's no debt and a closing net cash increase of GBP 7 million to GBP 41 million, testament to that strong cash conversion, which is coming through at 66%. Free cash flows of GBP 6.5 million versus GBP 1.4 million in the prior year. We are proud to declare our first interim ordinary dividend of 0.45 pence following the announcement of our capital allocation policy in December. Operationally, then, both total orders and AOV are up 6% and 3%, respectively. Further evidence of market share gain and that strong customer offering that comes through. Continued reduction in marketing spend as a percentage of revenue, decreasing from 30% in the prior period to 28% in this period. Trade revenue grew by 20% to just short of GBP 30 million and now represents a fifth of our revenue.
Last, but by no means least, we've maintained our Trustpilot rating of Excellent and have seen our average score increase from 4.4 to 4.5, and that's out of 5. Here with the detailed income statement and drawing out some key points. A 10% revenue improvement driven by growth in order, AOV, consumer, and trade channels, and in each category. Margin improvement seen in the second half of prior year continues with more tailwinds from reduced shipping costs and better cable rates. Improvement in the rate of marketing spend offset marginally by well-publicized pay inflation and expensive short-term property cost required for the growth, but set for improvement once our warehouse transformation is complete. Improved profitability carries through to adjusted diluted EPS despite rising tax rates, with growth of 58% providing more capacity for reinvestment and shareholder returns. Next slide, please.
This slide illustrates the features just outlined, and key points to note in addition are consumer revenues are now close to those attained during the FY 2021 period and during the height of the pandemic, which is really pleasing to see. Trade growth continues against tougher comparatives as this channel becomes a greater part of the overall business. We're pleased with the return to growth in active customers, which is the graph to the bottom right. As Mark's already said, this is evidence of our successful replatforming, and it's already delivering benefit, and there's more to come.
Better cost of sale macros from reduced shipping and more favorable exchange rates has driven this improvement in gross margin. This together with top- line growth has driven improvement in overall gross profit. Mix has tipped slightly towards own brand, which is now at 76% of revenue. This should soften AOV growth but drops through to profit with margins at 51% versus 29% in our third- party brand offering. Next slide, please. This slide highlights that aforementioned momentum in marketing efficiency, but it also shows reduced CAC, so cost of acquisition, which when compared to increase in AOV illustrates the improved profitability in the group. Property and people cost increases are a natural part of the business growth and macroeconomic factors beyond our control.
I mean, that said, the new DC will offer opportunity to build in more scalability into the business, though our focus at this stage very much remains on a safe transition of operating model into that shed. First and foremost, that's the focus. Flipping now from P&L to cash flow. Cash is something that the organization has a deep reverence for and drives in its every thought. Improvement in EBITDA drops to greater % gains in cash generated from operations as optimal stock control in particular, a testament to the team here, reduces outflows versus the prior period whilst maintaining unrivaled stock availability for our customers across the largest range in the sector. Free cash flow of GBP 6.5 million compared to GBP 1.4 million in the prior period, again testament to that focus on cash conversion.
That's also aided by a GBP 0.3 million swing in finance interest cash benefit as a result of our net cash position and a reminder that our GBP 10 million RCF is undrawn. Moving to capital allocation. Just a reminder of the policy that we first adopted in December. The priority is to reinvest organically in profitable growth. With the exception of warehouse optimization that we'll talk to, the growth opportunities don't require much capital outlay. Dividend policy maintains EPS cover between 3 times and 3.5 times. Where we have excess cash, as we did last year, we'll consider further returns to shareholders.
Okay, moving on to key drivers and strategic progress. Just to start off, just to highlight our market share. We are if, you know, according to the data that's out there, the overall market leader.
You'll see that, in particular that in previous presentations we've been showing that we were second to B&Q. Based on the latest set of information that's available, we have overtaken B&Q with market share and become the overall leader, which is quite a key point really, and again reinstates our, you know, continued ambition to grow the business and take further market share. Nothing's changed from our approach to this and our ambitions from, you know, from the start, you know, of when we created Victorian Plumbing. Very pleased to see that. Brand awareness, that's gone back up to 64%, aided by the recent marketing campaign that we've launched, which I'll talk about in a few moments.
Our Trustpilot rating, up at 4.5 from 4.4, which again is challenging in the current employment market, but pleased to see it improve regardless. Yeah, all good numbers throughout from those. The new advertising campaign, Boss Your Bathroom, quite a bold and creative campaign that we've done. Probably our biggest investment in the actual creative to date. It was launched in the final weeks of 2022, and we've seen a really good response to this campaign. It's in its very beginnings. There's lots and lots of ideas and creative directions we can go with this. Boss Your Bathroom is going to be used in many different ways, both on-online and offline. This is really just the beginning.
Worked with a very high quality director for the TV adverts, which again have had an amazing response. There's lots of radio now, which we again previously haven't embraced. It's a really good platform for the next few years to continue reminding consumers of our brand and what it means. The paid search, again, nothing's changed here. We've always been, you know, very active in this area and also, you know, remaining with our approach to being the most aggressive and continuing to take market share and make it difficult for the rest of the market to compete. We've had an efficiency improvement which comes from other people, other businesses, reducing their spend. Obviously we're as efficient as we can be always, but that has improved the CAC and profitability, so that's good to see.
Yeah, the spend generally with regards to brand versus performance remains the same as what you've seen typically in the past at 5% versus 95%. Nothing's changed there. It's a good mix on spend. Moving on. The development of our technology. We've re-platformed the website. You probably remember from previous presentations we spoke about the development of the website. Took many years to do. We launched it with no downtime. It was probably, again, from our own standard, just, you know, normal to launch without any issues. You know, from what I'm told and what I hear is, you know, quite often these things can go wrong. Well, ours didn't. There wasn't any issues whatsoever.
The testing and the delays that we had were all part of making sure that the launch was successful, and it was. Again, that's just kind of the way we do things, so we're really pleased to see that's been done, again after many years. It's created that platform now for us to continue improving what we offer to the customer and the way everything works and the technology that's used. The website is a lot faster than it was previously. Even though the previous website was the fastest out there, it's even faster still. We've seen that this has improved conversion rates and aided the customer's journey. Functionality, there's a lot of functionality that's in development and soon to be released.
Again, that's the whole reason for this re-platform, was to give us the opportunity to take the overall platform forward. Search in particular, which is still being worked on at the moment. A lot of AI is involved. Very, very close to launching that feature. And again, there's a whole list of things that I could read off that are coming to the website that will have incremental improvements to the customer's journey and hopefully conversion rates. Trade app, something again we've spoken about in the past. It is now complete. But just as with the website, we are obsessively perfecting it continuously. We've got a beta version now, which is with a select group of our best trade customers.
It's quite a milestone to actually have, you know, delivered this to some customers for them to use and give us feedback. Again, before we go out there with a full offering to all consumers and trade customers, we wanna make sure that it's perfect and offers everything that they would expect from a trade app. Again, to have got to the point where it's ready in some form is quite an achievement, so we're looking forward to seeing what that does for the overall trade offering. Again, we're not excluding consumers from using this, and we certainly hope that they do.
It's a wonderful app and again, just in the same way we've, you know, with the website, we've applied some very, very high standards to this and made sure that it's everything that we'd hoped it would be. With regards to the strategic areas of the progress, trade, you'll see on the numbers we've had some good growth. The discounts for trade customers and account manager have really helped, the repeat rate. You can see the numbers versus last year. It's been a good improvement. The range of the plumbing parts has increased. Again, with our aim to be that one-stop shop for trade. This is still rolling out all the time.
Again, the trade app will really aid the appreciation of that product range and the ability to browse and purchase those, and repeat purchase in particular. That's one of the key points of, for the trade, is to be able to easily repeat order commonly used items. Another area that we've not previously embraced, and that will be hopefully an improvement. Adjacent categories, still in my personal opinion, underperforming. That's largely down to the constraints on space. Although we've seen some good percentage improvements as a, as an overall revenue, I think it's way below what we would have hoped ourselves. Regardless, increase in tile 52%, lighting 70%.
We've got some big plans to increase the prominence on the new website to show these categories, that's coming in the next few weeks, which will really help boost and educate our customers about our ranges and what else that, the other products that we sell. The fact that they're not additional, they are main categories just as the bathroom category. We are looking forward to seeing how that aids growth in the future. Yeah, we've been designing our own tiles now for some time. The traction for that and the interest in that is growing. Again, these are the sort of building blocks that for any sort of serious offering to consumers that are really important. We've established our own brand, Stonehouse Studio.
We're designing these tiles in-house, you know, to meet the latest fashion and trends, having them manufactured. I think that's a really good way to lead that market and make sure that we're at the forefront of whatever the current design trends are. Dan, do you wanna speak about the new warehouse?
Yeah. I'll get stuck into the numbers side of things. Just to add to what Mark said. This really is an exciting part of Victorian Plumbing's next chapter. Really helps to power up adjacent categories and the trade proposition, as well as providing a much more efficient platform for us to continue to grow core B2C. A huge project for the group. I'm very much looking forward to it to that extent. Big limiting factor removed, and a lot of focus this end. Just some of the kind of points of detail. We secured this in December. As we announced, the site is still under construction, as you can see from the photograph, but it is well progressed. As a reminder, it's a new 20-year lease, purpose-built.
It's 544,000 sq ft, that's the equivalent of about 10 football pitches, just to give you a sense of size. The photo really doesn't do it justice, in terms of scale, it supports our medium- term growth ambition. We estimate being operational in the second half of next financial year. There's circa GBP 26 million of CapEx across a 15-month period. That's split as GBP 7 million in the second half of this financial year, with the remainder coming in FY 2024. There's a tax benefit to cash of about GBP 2 million in the second half of this financial year, GBP 4 million in next. Also provides an opportunity for environmental improvement as part of ESG and aids our carbon- neutral journey and particularly around scope one and two, as that's baked into our growth.
Semi-automation brings opportunity for efficiency in the medium term, though a safe and stable transition is the key and something that ensures that the customer experience is always kept front of mind and our brand reputation is maintained. After a period of double running, which covers the period of operational transition up to the second half of next year, we anticipate no additional pre-tax outflow for rental expense. We will have a little bit of IFRS 16 front loading of cost which I'll be able to talk to in more detail at the full year. A large proportion of the current property expense to that end is incurred on short leases and that associated cost is recognized in OpEx.
The new lease is a long lease subject to the provisions of IFRS 16, so there'll be a little bit of recategorization between cost lines.
Yeah. Just to add just a few points on that. Again, you know, this warehouse we spoke about this during the roadshow for t he IPO, about our intention to have a what you may consider a single site solution, and again it's just reminding everybody that you know what we say we're going to do, we do, and we work hard in the background to make these things happen. You know, we couldn't announce this for obvious reasons, you know, in the months this has we've been working on this so it's really good to, you know to finally actually make the announcement earlier this year, and then talk about it now. I mean, the biggest disappointment obviously is the spend that's required to make this operational.
It appears you know as being part of my education I suppose that this is just not optional this spend if you take a warehouse of this size. The CapEx of GBP 26 million is almost that's just what it costs, in particular largely on sprinkler systems which I've had many sleepless nights over but, you know that it is what it is, and again it's the sensible thing to do from a health and safety perspective. I think you know as a responsible business we have to make sure that we do these things correctly, and obviously from a financial perspective we're in a good position to be able to fund this and make this investment work for ourselves for the future.
Yeah, really pleased that we finally got to this point, where we can embrace a really professional market- leading operation. Just in addition, with regards to the technology, we're keeping control of a lot of the technology that will power this warehouse. The WMS, for example, that we've always built ourselves, you know, we invest a lot in our IT, our team, and we are building the WMS system in-house, which will reduce the risk of any failings on launch. Again, by our standards, this should switch on and work almost immediately. There is a period of double running that you've spoken about, but we are, you know, we're in control of this again with our own standards, so we're confident that we can get this operational.
There will be some third- party elements that we can't control with regards to some of the machinery and the technology, but the our end will work and work well. We've got a lot of people working on this in the background at the moment. Constant meetings with regards to the strategy, and the logic that will apply to this, and rather than using the off the shelf solutions that most of the businesses opt for. Yeah, it's a really challenging but exciting thing and the whole team is really excited about it. Yeah, probably the biggest part of this really is this announcement on the distribution center because it really does form the basis for all of everything else we spoke to and our future growth. Dan, I think you're on to ESG.
We look we continue to mature our ESG credentials. We've got some kind of notable highlights to draw out so, better governance and ethics across the business, but with a focus now on people life cycle so looking at, start to end and how our people work in the business, and how we ensure that we're in control of that life cycle and how it delivers for us but also delivers importantly for them, so there's the right kind of level of symbiosis between the two parties. We established a charity committee, that works close to the organization again close to our values, and operates in the local community which is important for us. A lot of our workforce hired again from around the distribution centers.
We worked with a specialist company to identify our carbon footprint as we strive to achieve net- zero carbon emissions. Looking forward to providing more information in the next annual report on this. The business objectives, as I've said, for the new warehouse are being made with ESG at the forefront of our minds. ESG is thought about with the reverence it needs, but it's also baked into all the decision- making that we're employing as we deliver the strategy. Current trading and outlook. Consumer demand has remained robust. We've got continued order volume growth and continued increase in market share. We've got gross margin improvement continuing and more to come from improved shipping and FX. We do remain mindful that our consumers still face headwinds.
Our resilient trading and market- leading proposition being what it is, we do remain confident in delivering expectations for the full year. We continue to focus on our long term goals and making good progress across all strategic growth areas. This is underpinned by those market share gains and our industry-leading margins. We are confident in the future prospects of the Group.