Good morning, everyone. I'm Stephnie Judge. I'm pleased to be presenting to you the first time today as CEO of Victorian Plumbing, and I'm joined by my colleague Dan Barton, CFO. Before we dive into the presentation, I wanted to quickly remind everybody about what makes this business a great one and why I'm so proud to have been part of the story for the last 13 years now. Our position is one of real strength. We are a highly cash-generative business with strong foundations already well-established. We have a clear, focused, pure-play online operating model and a brand that's more recognizable and more trusted than ever before. At the same time, market trends are firmly behind us, with customers continuing to shift online. Looking ahead, we see exciting growth opportunities, particularly in tiles and flooring and in homewares through MFI.
We've also strengthened our team, both by bringing in new talent and promoting from within, which gives us the capacity and ambition across the business. Importantly now, the heavy lifting on CapEx is complete. The infrastructure is in place, which gives us the capacity to scale and drive efficiencies. The key takeaway here is simple. Strong foundations, clear momentum, and a business that's very well-positioned to accelerate growth. Turning to our first half performance now. This is a story of continued market share gains and strong strategic execution. Changes at board level have been completed, and Mark and I are fully aligned on our objectives in our new roles as we look to meet the strategy. Progress in H1 has materialized across a number of fronts. We've continued to embed semi-automation across our warehouse network, driving efficiency.
MFI is building real momentum, sat at now over 5,500 SKUs, with strong traffic to the site and early revenue coming through into homewares. This is a key growth platform for us. We've also strengthened our logistics capability through the recent acquisition of Sovereign, which gives us greater control over fulfillment, scale, and service. That strategic progress is clearly translating into performance. We've delivered record half-year revenue at GBP 168.8 million, up 11%, and we continue to outperform the wider market, reinforcing our position as the U.K.'s number one bathroom retailer. Tiles and flooring, it has been a standout for us, up at 84% and still with significant headroom for growth. Trade continues to scale as well, with record revenue of GBP 39 million. Overall, strong execution, clear momentum, and multiple growth levers delivering in our first half. Turning to marketing now.
This is an area where we are continuing to invest with real intent. You can see that our overall marketing spend remains strong, with a clear focus for online. That's deliberate, and that's where we see the best returns, and it aligns directly with the ongoing customer shift to digital. At the same time, we've been increasing our investment in brand. This is about building long-term recognition, trust, and a point of difference in the market. Importantly, we're doing this in a disciplined manner. Excuse me. Marketing as a percentage of revenue is trending down even as we continue to invest, so we are driving efficiencies alongside the growth. Alongside this, our existing brand partnerships such as Bolton Wanderers, the World Snooker Tour, and our newest sponsorship with Bristol City FC, are amplifying awareness and helping us to reach a broader audience.
The message here is clear: targeted investment, improving efficiencies, and a growing brand presence, which all support sustainable long-term growth. Moving on to brand awareness. I'm bringing this slide to life for you. What you can see here is a consistent, measurable momentum in brand awareness. That's the direct result of the disciplined investment in media and stronger, more effective creative. At the top of the market, the big incumbents remain highly visible, but importantly, we are closing that gap where it matters. Victorian Plumbing has stepped up to 73% awareness, showing a clear upward trajectory over time, and that's a significant gain for us, and that reflects that our strategy is working. If you look to the mid and long-tail competitors, Better Bathrooms, Victoria Plum, for example, they're either flat or declining. We're not just growing, we are taking share of mind.
That's the key point for us. This is a relative game. As our awareness rises, others are being left behind. The results are showing that our brand strategy is delivering, it's compounding, and it's positioning us to win every time, even more decisively going forward. Moving on to technology. For us, this is where our engine really starts to fire. We're using AI and automation, not just to improve the experience, but to directly drive our performance. You can see that clearly now in conversion, which is up at 4%. On the front end, we've accelerated how we test and optimize. We've got faster iterations, better user journeys, and higher productivity. At the same time, we're embedding AI deeper into our order management, which means quicker and smoother resolutions for our customers.
Importantly, we have beta launched Ask Vic, which is our AI-powered shopping assistant, bringing personalized and instant support for our customers at scale. That's a meaningful step change in our customer experience. Behind the scenes, robotics are transforming our operations. From automated pallet wrapping to AGVs to smart conveying systems, we are driving efficiencies and accuracy right across the warehouse. We're increasing capacity without adding complexity. The headline here is simple. This is a scalable infrastructure. It's improving margins, it's enhancing our customer experience, and crucially, this sets us up to handle significantly more volumes as we continue to scale. Onto people. This is a really important differentiator for us. We're not just growing, we are getting more productive as we scale.
If you look on the left-hand side of the slide, revenue has increased consistently, now at GBP 323.9 million, while FTE growth, particularly in the warehouse, has been much more controlled. That operating leverage is deliberate and it's powerful. We're invested in the right areas while keeping overall efficiency tight across the business, and the result is now clear on the right-hand side of the slide. Revenue per FTE is up year-on-year, and crucially, we're ahead of the competition. We're generating more revenue per person than our peers, which talks directly to the strength of our model. This shows we've a highly efficient and scalable business. We're combining smart resourcing with technology and process to drive more output from every pound that we invest into our people. We're also using bolt-on M&A to support our next phase of growth.
In January this year, we acquired Sovereign for GBP 2.3 million, net of cash acquired. The transaction was executed at an attractive valuation and aligns closely with strategic priorities. The rationale here is straightforward. This gives us greater control over a key component of our cost base, particularly in distribution and fulfillment, which as you know has been an area of particular inflationary pressures. Operationally, Sovereign is a very well-established platform. It operates a fleet of 65 trucks and 95 trailers and handles over 1 million pallets annually. By bringing these capabilities into the group, we increase our control over delivery speed, the reliability, and overall customer experience. This is a practical capability-led acquisition. It strengthens our operational infrastructure and it supports cost control, as well as providing a solid foundation as we continue to evaluate further bolt-on opportunities in this space. Onto MFI.
This is a really exciting part of the equity story for us. What we've done here is move quickly from soft launch in the summer to meaningful scale, very short space of time. We started with just 600 SKUs. It was focused, low risk, and 100% U.K. sourced. That gave us clean capital-light entry into the category. By September, we'd more than doubled this range, staying disciplined and building out in bedding and textiles first, an area where we knew we could win. By December, we'd stepped it up again to over 3,000 SKUs as a broader offer, and importantly, trading through key peak periods such as Black Friday and Christmas. We've certainly not slowed down. By March this year, we were at 5,500 SKUs with a more balanced mix across categories, and importantly, already delivering revenue. The pace of execution here is key.
We're testing, we're learning, we're scaling quickly, but in a controlled way, in line with the guidance that Dan provided a year ago. Looking ahead, there's a clear runway for us. We're expanding the product range, moving sourcing to international, continuing to layer in seasonal newness. The headlines for MFI are that it is here, it is up and running, it's gaining traction, it represents a meaningful new growth lever for the group. What's really important here is what that execution is now translating into for traction. We're seeing strong, consistent growth in traffic with over 545,000 visits in the first half alone, that momentum is accelerating month by month. It isn't just traffic, it's quality.
Average order value is up 48%. Customers are buying more products per basket at 2.4 now per order. That tells us that this proposition is resonating with our customers. At the same time, orders are scaling quickly, around 50% average monthly growth, which is exactly what we want to see at this stage. Critically, our customer feedback is very strong. With a 4.7 trust score and reviews building rapidly, that's a clear signal that we are delivering a great experience as we grow. This is the key point. We're not just building range, we are starting to build a brand that converts, a brand that scales, a brand that satisfies customers. That combination is what gives us real confidence and excitement in the trajectory from here. Enough from me. I'll hand you over to Dan now for a review on the financials.
Thanks, Steph. Turning to the income statement, group revenue increased by 11% year-on-year to GBP 168.8 million. Retail remains the dominant contributor, generating nearly all revenues during the period. I have split out third party haulage revenue to enable better like-for-like comparison. Of course, we provide Victorian Plumbing and MFI in separate columns to aid understanding of the different moving parts. Overall, the key highlight is strong top line growth, stable margins and disciplined cost management, with some pressure on net profitability driven by the planned investment in MFI and non-cash charges as we compare six months of cost of the new infrastructure with just three months in the comparator. As is customary, the majority of the following slides will focus on Victorian Plumbing's performance. Building on the revenue performance, order volumes increased by 12% in the first half, reaching 609,000 orders.
This continues a consistent multi-year growth trend, with orders up from 453,000 in H1 2022, demonstrating sustained demand and effective execution. The growth this year is being driven by tiles and flooring, which as Steph has emphasized already, remains a key strategic category for us. On the right-hand side, you can see that we are continuing to outperform the broader home improvement and DIY market. While the market has been volatile and at times negative, our revenue growth has remained consistently ahead, reflecting both market share gains and the resilience of our customer proposition. Our growth is volume driven, supported by category strength and achieved against a challenging external backdrop. On slide 14, moving from volume to value, retail revenue continues to show double digit growth, increasing to GBP 167 million in the first half.
This is primarily driven by strength in the consumer segment, which grew by 10% to GBP 128 million and now represents 77% of total retail revenue. AOV has declined to GBP 274, which is down 3% year-on-year. This reflects ongoing customer trading down as well as mix effects within the categories. Despite this, volume growth more than offsets the reduction in AOV underpinning overall revenue expansion. Own brand penetration continues to increase and is now at 83% of revenue. This reflects the fact that most of the tiles and flooring sales come from our own brand stable, supporting margin resilience and reinforcing the price differentiation in our offering. In summary, we are seeing strong revenue growth driven by consumer demand and volume, with AOV pressure consistent with broader market trends, but partially mitigated through mix and own brand strength.
Tiles and flooring continues to be a key growth driver within the business. Revenue in this category increased by 84% to GBP 14 million, with strong momentum built over multiple periods. Accelerated following the finalization of our infrastructure transformation, which completed in December 2024. Surging sales growth in tiles and flooring reflects both increased customer adoption and continued expansion of our range and proposition. Importantly, this is still a relatively small part of the overall business, which just goes to show what the scale of the opportunity is and what we've got ahead of us. On the right-hand side, we estimate the addressable market at approximately GBP 1.4 billion, of which we currently hold around a 2% share, which was not so long ago, just 1%. This under-penetration presents a significant opportunity to scale further, leveraging our existing customer base, distribution capabilities and own brand strength.
In summary, tiles and flooring is delivering high growth today with substantial headroom for continued expansion. Turning to product mix and profitability now. In absolute terms, gross profit increased by 9% to GBP 84 million, in line with revenue growth, of course margins have remained stable at an industry leading 50%, I think showcasing the impressive quality of our earnings. Changes in product mix and the resulting pressure on AOV has been offset by effective cost control in shipping, carriage and transaction costs, together with commendable supply chain management. Our own brand penetration supports margin resilience. Turning to underlying costs, we continue to see the progressively strong marketing efficiency offset by the impact of inflation in people and overheads, allowing us to support growth without diluting margins. Total underlying costs increased to GBP 66.7 million, up 9% year-on-year.
Breaking that down, marketing spend increased modestly by 6% when compared to revenue growth, reflecting continued discipline and improved efficiency in customer acquisition. In contrast, people costs and overheads grew at a faster rate, driven by inflationary pressures and ongoing investment in the business to support growth, offset by the productivity gains that Steph talked to earlier. Importantly, as a percentage of revenue, underlying costs remain broadly stable at just under 40%, demonstrating our ability to scale while maintaining cost control. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 12% year-on-year to GBP 17 million.
This reflects continued top-line growth combined with disciplined cost management, particularly in marketing. EBITDA margin remains stable at 10%, demonstrating our ability to absorb inflationary pressures while maintaining profitability. Looking at the margin bridge on the right, there are some headwinds from cost of sales and other inflationary factors. However, these are fully offset by improved marketing efficiency.
Moving below EBITDA, adjusted PBT declined to GBP 11.2 million with margin at 7%. This reduction is driven by well-signaled higher depreciation and finance costs. Depreciation has increased to GBP 4.5 million, reflecting a full six months of expense in H1 2026 versus just three months in H1 2025. Similarly, and in addition, finance costs have risen to GBP 1.3 million. Importantly, these expenses are largely non-cash and follow a period of significant long-term investment in infrastructure. While PBT is lower year-on-year, this is driven by strategic investment and financing effects, positioning Victorian Plumbing for future growth. Turning to cash flow for the group now, cash being my favorite topic, this is a real strength of the business. We generated just under GBP 13 million of free cash flow in the first half, maintaining the step change we delivered last year.
Cash conversion remains very strong at 84%, which clearly demonstrates the quality of our earnings and the efficiency of our operating model. What's particularly important here is that cash generation is running ahead of the profit profile. We're converting growth into cash consistently and at scale. This gives us real flexibility, whether that's reinvesting in growth areas like tiles and flooring and homewares through MFI, supporting infrastructure, or strengthening the balance sheet. Overall, while accounting profits are impacted by investment and non-cash charges, the underlying cash performance of the business is both strong and highly reliable. The strength of our cash generation gives us real optionality, and this slide shows how we're deploying that capital in a disciplined way to maximize long-term shareholder returns. Our first priority remains investing in organic growth opportunities, particularly scaling within our existing addressable markets and continuing to build momentum in high growth categories.
Secondly, we remain committed to delivering sustainable dividend growth, reflected in a 6% increase in the interim dividend to GBP 0.74. Thirdly, our strong balance sheet gives us the flexibility to pursue selective M&A opportunities like Sovereign, particularly where they strengthen our category leadership, expand our vertical capabilities, or accelerate entry into adjacent markets. Importantly, we're doing this from a position of real financial strength with strong cash generation, no debt, and no significant CapEx requirements in the near to medium term. The key takeaway, and the last thing I want to say is this: We have the financial capacity to invest for growth, reward shareholders, and pursue strategic opportunities, all while maintaining balance sheet discipline. I'll hand you now back to Steph for the conclusion.
Thanks, Dan. Finally, I'll summarize our current trading and outlook. I'm pleased to report that the group delivered mid-single-digit revenue growth in the first six weeks of the second half, despite experiencing the widely reported subdued consumer sentiment driven by the Middle East conflict and its impact on discretionary spending. No material cost increases have been observed to date. However, the group remains vigilant to potential inflationary pressures, particularly from imports from China and energy pricing. Despite factoring in a more subdued consumer environment for H2, the group anticipates full year revenue and adjusted PBT to be in line with current market expectations, supported by the group's typically stronger second half weighting, with H2 seasonally generating higher profitability than the first half of the year.
All in all, a positive start for the group, and I look forward to updating you on our continued successes now at the end of the year. Thank you. We can open up to Q&A.
Thanks very much to you both, we've got a number of questions. Okay. How much working capital do you think you will need to grow by to accommodate your MFI ambitions?
Dan, do you want to take that?
Yeah. Not a lot is the answer. We've got to give MFI the legs to grow, we'll get ahead of it. We kind of already have. It might expand by GBP 1 million or GBP 2 million relative to the group. To be honest, the bathroom business is so large that if the buying team stopped for half a day, they would cover both the tiles and flooring expansion and MFI's together. The working cap is easily affordable. The net cash should land at the end of the year by about GBP 27 million. Essentially in two years' time, there will be quite a lot of cash in this business. Getting ahead of that, the next question, we will be looking at dividend progression.
Okay, thanks. The flooring and tiles are doing extremely well. How much more do you need to grow the range in order to target that full market opportunity that you've outlined?
Good question. I actually think the range is in a really good place now. We've spent certainly the last 12 months focusing on building out range and availability, which is equally as key in tiles and flooring. What we don't want to do is stock ourselves out. Areas for opportunity that we haven't covered yet, to be quite clear, is in outdoor tiles. That's the next one for us. We're really happy with where the range is and how much we've got. We think it covers a lot of ground.
No pun intended.
Probably one for you, Dan. Why is your gross margin flat when sales of own brand products are increasing? You'd expect this to be a tailwind for margin expansion.
Yeah, it's a good question. Previously, the answer is that tiles and flooring is nearly all own brand. Unlike the bathroom business, that margin is lower than the Group's right now because we've not yet got the scale, and we've not yet got the really big MOQs going into the supply chain. Most of the tiles and flooring own brand stable is being manufactured in Europe, so Italy, Spain, some from Turkey, a bit from Egypt. We will likely move some of that manufacture to Vietnam, and therefore that own brand stable gets the power up of margin that you see in bathroom, quite rightly, whoever asked that question. You'll see that over time. A little bit of a nuance this year in that the own brand progression driven from tiles and flooring actually just pulls the margin back a little.
Obviously, we've held it stable, so we've got lots of other things going on in terms of cost control. Actually some good own brand margin coming through on the bathroom side all to halt that. I think looking forward, I don't think there's much more gross margin to come. In fact, with the inflationary headwinds, you might see it tip back a little bit as tiles and flooring grows. As that part of the group gets scale and MFI in equal measure, that group margin comes back to around 50%.
Okay. 50%, the follow-on question I've got here is with revenue per FTE trending up and marketing as a percent of sales coming down, where do you think EBITDA will get to on the medium term?
Yeah, look, there should be a few more group percentage point improvements on EBITDA margin because the investment's done. The key thing, Hannah, and to the person that asked you the question, is the people. Unit cost of people has been going up and up, driven by National Living Wage for us. It was 4.1% this time around, so that unit cost is the rate of growth of the National Living Wage is slowing down, which helps. The key is what Steph, the team, have done in the warehouse with the productivity. The automation is beginning to bite. You can see that with just plus 2% FTE, where the business did volume of 12%. Ultimately, at each turn, in each year, you'd expect percentage point improvement. Ultimately, up to something like 15% is where we should be aiming for.
In reality, the growth coming through when you've got 84% growth in tiles and flooring, I think a number of us have forgotten what a retailer looks like when it grows at 84%, but it's phenomenal. There's obviously a little bit more inefficiency in that, which we'll shake out over time. It's not a problem. We'll probably shoot for the growth there more. To be honest, a lot of this depends upon what the competition does and how they respond. The big tile players, the lazy market leaders that are out there that are in bricks and mortar models, click and collect models, that clearly there's demand from our customer base for. All of that depends at the speed of which we take market share. Yeah, 1 percentage point improvement over the next couple of years, probably topping out around 15% on EBITDA.
Okay. Thank you. Steph, lovely to hear from you today on your first outing. Question here, how involved is Mark Radcliffe in the running of the business now?
Mark is the entrepreneur, and he is our visionary, and remains to be our cultural anchor. Actually, he's very much finding his feet in his new role. He is spending time with me on two areas specifically. Prior to me stepping into this role, commercial operations sat with me anyway. Now it's focus and coaching more around marketing and tech, those two areas. Actually, he's enjoying doing a little bit of R&D for us at the moment.
Yeah.
He's very active in board meetings, as you can imagine a founder director does. He's very receptive to the small tweaks and changes, and ultimately is aligned with me and knows exactly the way I work from the last 13 years, and understands my discipline around execution. Yeah, it's really exciting. We're finding it feels actually very natural because it's an evolution, not a revolution. It's felt very smooth.
Great. Couple of questions on tiling. One, what percentage of the tiles business is grouting and accessories versus actual tiles?
It's not information we give externally. I'll answer it therefore without numbers. It is an important part. Interestingly, the growth has come nearly all from consumer who tend to not order that stuff as much. In fact, you do get a bit of DIY, more so in the tiling area than flooring, but a lot more than you do in bathroom, which is linked to plumbing. Consumer does buy proportionally more of the ancillaries and the consumables around the product. Obviously, as we step into selling more tiles and flooring into trade, that area becomes even more important, and the availability becomes important. There's one chap that he comes to us for screed because it's perfect when he mixes it.
We always have it in stock, and he's regularly ordered. There is examples of trade doing that. Yeah, a healthy amount, a proportionate amount to a consumer doing DIY. Like I say, as trade picks this product up more, there'll probably be a little bit more of a boost there.
On the other side of tiles, obviously in terms of marketing, you haven't put a lot of push behind it as it currently stands. When do you expect to turn on the tap a bit more for brand awareness?
You're quite right. I think 96 out of 100 people know us for bathroom. We have no idea what the other 4% know us for. I've not figured it out. In terms of tiles and flooring, only 44% know about us.
44 people. Yeah, there is more to do. Again, as Dan said before, 84% growth without having pulled that lever yet, that's a great optionality point and a choice for us to go at the right time. What we will do is be disciplined with it and controlled and make sure it's in the right areas. The brand partnerships and sponsorships definitely help us overall. We are doing sprinklings of marketing for tiles and flooring. It's not huge, but it's enough, and it will be a steady ramp. For us, we think that there are 10 levers, say for tiles and flooring. We've pulled three so far. That gives you an idea of what we think we've got to go at. Yeah, we'll continue marketing. We will protect the customer journey and all of that.
A little bit to what you said before, it depends on competition. If competition just readily allowing us to take more, we're going to continue to go for growth.
Yeah. The real question, Hannah, just to add into that, Steph, the management team think far more about servicing the inevitable growth that we'll come across because you don't get 84% growth without striking gold. Whoever's asking the question, remember this, when you've got that much growth coming through and you've not done that much, you very quickly flip into, well, actually, what's the capacity of the building? How do we get the stock in? The issues are much more how do we maintain a customer journey for the next wave of people, which will be double again in a short order, I'm sure of it. How do we make sure that their perhaps first experience buying this product or maybe first experience buying with us, because they haven't bought bathroom product, is the best one so they come back?
Essentially what we're doing now, and what you can see with this business, we're selling much more into the home. It's not just the bathroom. Tiles and flooring takes us out the bathroom into hallways. The flooring into dining room, tiles in the kitchen. Steph mentioned the range is expanding into the garden. That repeatability and that customer experience is the most important thing.
Okay. Thank you. M&A obviously did Sovereign, and that looks a success. Will we see more like that or are there other areas to look at?
Sovereign has been a success. It's been a very nice, simple transition actually because we've worked with Sovereign as a partner for 10 years- plus. As we've grown and scaled, they've had to stand up to that, and they've grown and scaled alongside us, and we've helped each other along the way. It was a very practical-led acquisition, which means that it gives us a lot of power when it comes into network. If we were to do another one of these, you can imagine it would be in the southeast. It would follow population base. We'll get this one integrated, and we'll make sure that we nail this one first.
As Steph said, at the right time, another probably one more transport business similar shape and size in the South to serve the Southeast. Don't think it'd be in the Southeast, probably just south of Birmingham. Alongside that, we've also talked to Ireland. The Irish, we've noticed growing Irish custom. The Irish consumer, starved of range post-Brexit, are arriving at the U.K. site, the .co.uk site, paying in sterling and getting really inferior delivery service. It's growing. We're doing a little bit of thinking around do we do something in Ireland from the Leyland site, stand up a website, do a little bit of M&A to take some warehouses, all kind of small bolt-on. The last area is probably tuck-in M&A in adjacencies. There are businesses that paint radiators, so they sell radiators, and they have a paint service alongside it.
We don't offer that, so that'd be something that would be really interesting for us to look at. There are other small tile businesses, where perhaps they've developed a real knowledge for how to distribute large pallets and quantities, which is something we expect to be able to need to do better. Yeah, just looking for tuck-ins and M&A opportunities in those areas as we go along. Plenty of cash to do it. All of it will be positive to the financials. The thing is, Hannah, we are a small management team. We're not a massive corporate despite the size of the business. You could throw a blanket over the decision-makers, two of which are in this room. We've got a lot on. Probably for the next 6- 12 months, not anymore, but let's see.
Okay, thank you. As trade becomes a larger part of the business, would you consider adding physical depots to cater to that end of the business, similar to the Howdens model?
It's not something that we're considering. We are under-indexed in trade, and we are doing some work around personalization and actually understanding our trade customer better. We think through that, what we can do is encourage repeatability and help solve a tradesperson's problems. Their wants and needs between a one-man band to Bob's Builders to a hotel chain, as you can imagine, are very different. What we need to do is understand what their wants and needs are, be able to personalize against that experience, and therefore be the most trusted brand for trade. The infrastructure that we've now got, we've been able to move our next-day cutoff times, and we are fully stocked all of the time.
Anything that a tradesperson could want in terms of the bathroom, they can place an order right up until 5:00 P.M. and have it delivered next day to site. We think that's a really good proposition. We just need to be able to get into more detail with knowing our trade base and customers.
Dan, you mentioned getting product to Ireland better. There's a question here. Will you offer your products to the Isle of Man, please? It'd be a great opportunity.
Yes, I guess so. We must deliver to the Isle of Man, surely.
We do in small amounts.
We do in small amounts. We'll take that away. I'll have a look and come back. Yeah, there's no reason why we shouldn't. I'm sure we can.
What have you learned so far from MFI, and what are the key KPIs you are focused on?
That's a good one. MFI, we're measuring, Dan, definitely you, for the measurement and KPIs, but we are seeing traction. Please bear in mind that for the last nine months since soft launch, we have been focusing on product acquisition. That's been the most important differentiator for us. We've got it now at 5,500 SKUs. It's really strong in that short space of time, particularly around the bedding and textiles in a fully stocked model for online. I'm not sure there's many that could beat that range that we've got now. We've built it out fantastically. The imagery is equally important. We've concentrated on that. That's in a good place.
We are seeing early repeatability actually as well, and the customers are telling us that these propositions is brilliant and the service that wraps around that is actually even better than VP's, 4.7 versus 4.6, which creates some healthy competition internally. For us, we can see that it's positive. It is getting traction. GBP 500,000 in revenue, 545,000 visits to site in the first half already is huge. We're really excited about it. I'm told in terms of your KPIs, you look at things slightly differently.
Yeah. Still in its infancy. Obviously, we gave a lot more information out this time. Trustpilot scores, PPO is going up, so that's products per order into a healthy place. AOV building, which you'd imagine as the product range broadens away from smaller items in terms of value, like bedding into, say, beds and furniture. Very much kind of week to week measuring the business. I think the two things that will happen next is we'll move more of a mix of the product into international sourcing to get gross profit margin power up. That will be used to then kind of really market the business properly now that the product range is in a good place. We're really excited.
I think the next time I update the market and when I'm kind of back on the road in December, I'll probably have about three to four months worth of marketing data and gross margin data to look at. Four months won't be enough in order for me to kind of talk with any authority to the breakeven point. Everything is indicating, all of the signs are positive as we go through each, as we overcome each hurdle in this business. Each time I come, we give more information. It's still watch and see. Markers that tell us it's going to be a success are those data points we've given in the deck that we talk through. There's also the private sector businesses out there that have rapidly growing, that have a pure play online model.
Still a pretty small percentage of this TAM, but kind of taking consumer into pure play, click and collect, fully stocked model. You arrive on our website, and it's there. If you see something on our website, we can put our hands on it in the building, and that gives you the knowledge that it will arrive tomorrow if you pay for next day delivery or Monday, Tuesday if you don't, but it all comes together. That's really important. One of the things that I've learned about MFI is if you're aged 35 or below, you have never heard of this brand. You simply have never heard of it. It's near universal. That's the cutoff marker. If you are aged 35 and above, you typically have. It's all translated into real traction.
As Steph said, with 500,000 visitors to site in just nine months without really marketing the business, I think speaks for itself.
Great. Question here. "If I type in best shower tray for under GBP 500 into Claude and ChatGPT, Victorian Plumbing does not appear." What are your thoughts on that?
That's a good one.
Yeah. Look, my thoughts on that are we are starting to get, I suppose what you can infer from the question is, AI a threat to the business? I think the answer is no. More AI-driven shopping is arriving at site versus traditional search. That's definitely a problem for Google to figure out. I'm sure there'll be a winner in all of the AI progress and technology that's coming. Ultimately, why we sleep at night and why we are relatively relaxed and see this as an opportunity is the search, whether it's Claude or ChatGPT or Gemini, the search return to the customer has to be a good one.
If you are looking for a shower tray for under GBP 500, ultimately, those models are beginning to, obviously not in this case, but they are beginning to recognize that we have the brand, we have the customer services, we have the product, we can deliver it next day. It is at the price that it says on the website. It's a real business, and you will have a great shopping experience. I think those that push you towards, say, bobsbathrooms.com, that don't have all those things that I've just described, ultimately will result in a poor shopping experience for the customer and you won't return to search with that AI agent. This business has been through this before when eBay was kind of crushed by Google. There was a time where, and I'm sure folk on this call will remember, where eBay was the most powerful shopping experience digitally.
Google came in and took that market. This business went through that. Ultimately, we've got GBP 50 million worth of stock on the balance sheet, and it's ready to be sold in a sensibly priced way. Yeah, in that example, the person that's done that in Claude, they didn't push them to us, but I think increasingly we're starting to see that they are. I think do that again in a year, and it'll happen.
Well, he's already done it in Gemini. The good news is you appear there.
There we go.
That's a win.
That's the Google, I think so.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, well. How achievable do you think your share plan targets are?
Sorry. Could you say that again, Hannah?
Yes. How achievable do you think your share plan targets are? I'm assuming the board has chosen them to stretch you, but nonetheless, make them achievable.
Exactly that. Of course, yes, it is a stretching target, but it's one that we are absolutely up for and we buy into completely. We can see a runway for us. You can see Core Bathrooms has capacity now for plenty more to come. Even in a market that is bleak at times, we are still the outperformer, which gives us very much confidence. If it doesn't come back, we've seen early signs that seem positive. If it doesn't come back, then we still do and we fare a lot better than others, and ultimately at some point, that drives exit in the market, right?
Yeah.
You've got MFI just touched on early indications we are really positive and excited about. This is fun. This is really good fun for us to create a new brand, a great shopping experience, more lifetime value and repeatability than acquiring a basket for a bathroom. I'm sure you would shop on MFI more frequently than you would buy a bathroom. You've got tiles and flooring, and as we said before, we are very clear on levers and drivers, and by no means have we exhausted all of those yet. You've talked about on M&A. All these things are what we're really excited for and ultimately what we are focused on driving in.
Yeah. To add to that, the cash generative, the business is so cash generative. Wonderful for a CFO, this business for us. You've got dividend progression in terms of capital allocation with less spreadsheets in two years' time, talk to a lot of cash. Gives us so much optionality. Ultimately, the blue sky ambition is for the group to get to GBP 1 billion revenue. That's not in the forecast. That's not something that will be held to account on at this stage, that's the aspiration. We don't work this hard to not achieve that VCP, in doing so, what we've noticed on the road and with others is we're very aligned to shareholders who clearly would be delighted with anything north of GBP 2.50 from where we sit. I'm sure as we approach it, we'll want more because the ambition is to keep going.
Ultimately, what we want is those aisles in those kind of DIY and homewares businesses that you've all visited, that I grew up with, that all of the things that are sold in those aisles can be sold online through this model. Yeah, a decent period of time in which to do it, but yeah, really looking forward to it. Yeah, we kind of can share updates, can't we, as we go along each six months.
I think that's a great note on which to end. Thank you both for joining us today and to our audience. Please, audience, remember to engage with the feedback shortly. We'll see you in six months.
Thank you.
Thank you, everyone. Have a good day.