Of the FY 2021 result and FY 2022 growth outlook. And then following which, we'll have an opportunity for you to have your questions answered. Please put your Q and A into the box the bottom of the screen, and I will moderate. My name is Ron Bechtler. I will we will now commence the presentation followed by the Q and A.
Thank you.
Good morning, and welcome to kogan.com's FY21 Results Presentation. I'm Ruslan Kogan, Founder and CEO of kogan.com. Joining me here today is David Schafer, David and I are proud to present covidot
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Good morning, and welcome to kogan.com's FY 'twenty one Results Presentation. I'm Ruslan Kogan, Founder and CEO of kogan.com. Joining me here today is David Schafer, Kogan.com's Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer. David and I are proud to present kogan.com's full year FY 'twenty one results today. There is a lot of information to share with you, and we will also be taking your questions after the presentation.
Like us, you probably believe in the growing role e commerce will play in the future of retail. It's what we've been living and breathing every single day since 2006. There are lots of highlights when we reflect over the last year. Some of these include kogan.com turned 15 years young. We surpassed $1,000,000,000 in gross sales for the first time ever.
We surged past 3,000,000 active customers. We had record breaking Black Friday sales, and we made our largest acquisition to accelerate our expansion into New Zealand, and those are just the highlights. It's been a challenging year for so many people around the country and the world. I'm proud that our team remained focused through difficult COVID impacted operating conditions and found ways to support our customers when they needed our help most. While we recently celebrated our 15th birthday, we feel like we're just getting started.
Over the next year, we'll be rolling out new and exciting projects to further support our loyal Kogan community with Kogan First membership rewards, new and improved delivery solutions and further enhancements to online shopping experiences. Our Kogan First membership rewards program was launched in the last quarter of FY 'nineteen. At 30 June, we had grown our Kogan First memberships to more than 120,000 subscribers who received an average of $105 of member benefits this financial year. Kogan First members have stronger loyalty repeat purchase behaviors and non members because they get such a great deal. It's fast getting to the point where if you shop online with any frequency, you'd be crazy not to be a Codan First member.
We work extra hard to delight these members and will soon roll out the next phase of our rewards program with a medium term goal of reaching 1,000,000 Kogan First subscribers. This year, we navigated through the challenges that with rapid growth. We are a data driven business and our decision to significantly invest in inventory and operating capacity was made based on forecasts using the best available data at the time. Hindsight would prove otherwise, and it became apparent that we didn't put ourselves in an optimal position. We quickly responded by taking the necessary steps to rebalance inventory levels, which impacted short term margins in the second half.
This process was a valuable learning for our business and we have already made significant improvements several systems and processes and our inventory is approaching the right level for the business. The company expects improved operating leverage moving forward, especially since growth in sales has resumed so far in FY 'twenty two. Over the past 18 months, we have witnessed a massive swing towards the e commerce retail revolution. Kogan.com has been ready and waiting for this for well over a decade. We look forward to continuing to delight our customers by making the most in demand products and services more affordable and accessible.
Turning to Slide 4, I will take you through some of the group's highlights for the year. The business surpassed $1,000,000,000 in gross sales for the first time ever. Exceptional growth across key metrics, revenue, gross profit, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted NPAT were achieved over FY 'twenty one. More and more customers are choosing kogan.com as we attract new customers to our platform. The trust customers place in kogan.com supports the continued investments we make in our platform and our obsessive focus on improving customer value.
We can see the number of repeat orders from these customers rapidly accelerating along with the number of repeat customers on the kogan.com platform over the last 12 months. Kogan Marketplace was a standout performer during the year, nearly doubling its gross sales year on year. The continued growth of Kogan Marketplace demonstrates the scalability of the platform and the strong customer and seller engagement. Kogan Marketplace continues to expand its offering both in Australia and New Zealand with Kogan Marketplace New Zealand having launched in June 2021. This is a huge opportunity, and we're still in the very early days of Kogan Marketplace.
We saw strong growth across the product divisions with exclusive brands continuing to contribute more than half of the business' gross profit. Lastly, newly acquired MightyApe is off to a strong start for the 7 months of trading since completion in December 2020. On Slide 5, you can see the strong performance and trajectory of the business. Given the volatility over the COVID period, the compound growth rate from FY 2019 to FY 2021 is a useful metric to consider the underlying growth of the business. Shortly, I will hand over to David, who will discuss these financial results with you in more detail.
Slide 6 shows key financial metrics against comparative years and the track record of the business. We are proud to be able to cycle strong growth in our business and continue to produce solid results for our shareholders. As you can see from Slide 7, we're continually evolving the business to respond to the demands of our customers and to strengthen our competitive advantage. Our growing portfolio of businesses provides diversification of income, making us a more resilient business. We're always looking for new ways to delight our customers.
While our customer numbers are growing, at this stage, represents only around 3% of Australian online retail trade. We still believe that we've barely scratched the surface. We see many more opportunities. We remain 100% focused on giving the Kogan community access to the products and services that are in high demand and delivering better value more efficiently. I always receive questions about the virtuous cycle in our business and why it's important.
I'll take a moment to explain this unique aspect of the kogan.com business as outlined on Slide 8. Each step in the cycle continuously works towards our mission to make the most in demand products and services more affordable and accessible. We have continued to build our active customer base, which now consists of over 3 200,000 kogan.com customers and over 700,000 mighty ag customers, bringing our total customers to almost 4,000,000. The Kogan community continues its strong growth. Because of the trust and reach of our platform and the size of our community, we become more attractive to potential suppliers, marketplace sellers and partners and can in turn continue to onboard new brands, new sellers and broaden our product offering.
This then allows us to grow and gives us the commercial cloud to secure a broader offer and improved value for the Kogan community, which then further grows our active customer base who wants access to these ever improving deals. We consistently have more to offer our customers across many aspects of their lives. From our price leading products to mobile phone plans, holidays, insurance, Internet, home loans, cars, superannuation, credit cards and energy utilities. Over the next year, we'll be rolling out new projects to further support our loyal Kogan community with Kogan First membership rewards, improved delivery solutions and further enhancements to the online shopping experience. Turning to Slide 9.
You can see that our loyal customers are choosing kogan.com time and time again. The year has seen rapid growth in repeat customers and repeat orders. As many others have said, Once you've been able to shop for virtually anything you need with a few clicks or taps while sitting on your couch, why would you go back to battling parking lots and crowds. With a huge range, great value and first class service, kogan.com and MightyApe are well poised to continue market share while helping to grow the market. Gross profit per customer is expected to grow as our product range expands.
Loyalty benefits improve, and customers increasingly come to rely on kogan.com for more of their shopping needs. Slide 10 is a very important slide. You can see that our platform and loyal customer base continue to drive most of our traffic. As mentioned throughout this presentation, we have invested heavily in marketing over the year, recording our largest marketing spend. Given our record marketing investment, the proportion of traffic from free sources reduced to last year.
But importantly, free traffic sources still represent the vast majority of our visits to our websites, which demonstrates that satisfied customers continue to return to kogan.com. This is a key metric for the platform we have built. We also managed to keep our spend per new active customer consistent with last year while significantly growing active customers. Turning to Slide 11, the success of Kogan Marketplace has resulted in the platform nearly doubling its gross sales year on year. If you're shopping online, what's the final thing you want in addition to price and speed?
For most of us, it's a range. There is a huge and growing range of millions of products available on Kogan Marketplace. This makes kogan.com more relevant to more customers. The building and development of Kogan Marketplace has made the company even more scalable by enabling us to grow infinitely without ongoing investment in inventory. Kogan Marketplace will create huge benefits to both our customers and our shareholders as we build one of the major e commerce platforms in Australia and New Zealand with Kogan Marketplace New Zealand having launched in June 2021.
The continued growth of Kogan Marketplace and the strong pipeline of sellers ready to be onboarded demonstrates the scalability of the platform and the strong customer and seller engagement achieved to date, whilst also indicating the size of the opportunity as the Kogan marketplace expands its offering both in Australia and New Zealand. When I reflect on the exclusive brand strategy of our business, it takes me back to my garage or my parents' garage in 2006. To a much younger me and a vision to make the latest consumer products more affordable. More than 15 years on, we have built a loyal customer base that loves the quality and value of our exclusive brands. This is reflected in the ongoing growth you can see on Slide 12.
It is this strong customer demand that enables us to continue to invest in and expand and improve our offering. Slide 13 gives you insight into the future of our business. Here we reveal our Kogan First subscriber numbers for the first time. As mentioned earlier, Kogan First is more than just free shipping. Kogan First members are offered exclusive deals on top of everyday discounts on our platform, Kogan First rewards credit and priority customer care.
More savvy customers are now being attracted to Kogan First loyalty program. We have nearly doubled the members in the current year compared to FY 'twenty, bringing us to 120,000 Kogan First members at 30 June. This growth rate is exciting for our business with Kogan First members demonstrating stronger loyalty and repeat purchase behavior than nonmembers. The Kogan First members on average have received $105 of member benefits in FY 'twenty one. Smart shoppers are driving strong growth in the Kogan First subscriber base.
In fact, by the end of July, our subscribers had grown to 100 and 47,000. Our medium term goal is to reach 1,000,000 Kogan First members, and the company is investing in the program to work towards this goal. Turning to Slide 14, our team also works hard to ensure that the shopping experience we deliver is 1st class. So if you look beyond the range, the price and the speed we are able to get products to customers, what is the actual shopping experience like on the website or the app. We have the pleasure of using the latest technology and feedback loops to improve the shopping experience for millions of shoppers and to make it pleasant and fast.
We use machine learning and AI at Kogan to ensure that our customers get the tailored shopping experience they deserve. Our proprietary algorithms and technology means that we are communicating the right product or service to the right customer at the right time. We have also created proprietary systems to reduce fraud and optimize marketing making us smarter and stronger as a business and leading to the best deals for our customers. David will now take you through the financial results in more detail.
Thank you, Ruslan. Throughout the ability of this financial year, Our business navigated major supply chain and operational challenges to achieve our highest ever gross sales of 1,179,000,000 a proud achievement to celebrate our 15th birthday. Gross margin increased by 0.7 percentage points to 26 0.1%. Gross margin growth was impacted by promotional activity in the second half of the year in order to bring inventory to the right level relative to the size of our business. Variable costs reflect the increased volume in transactions and stock holdings throughout the year, which enabled us to achieve $1,179,000,000 in gross sales.
Variable costs also include 1 off logistics detention charges of $7,700,000 driven by one off warehousing and supply chain interruptions from late 2020 to April 2021. These charges have almost never previously been incurred and were resolved in full prior to the financial year end. Mark and costs reflect the significant investment made by the in growing our platform, enabling us to grow kogan.comactivecustomers to well over 3,000,000. Our marketing investment reflects our confidence in the future of the business. We're laying the foundation for growth.
We're building a large and growing brand and customer base and that will hold us for years to come. In the second half of the year, the company placed a strong focus on promotional activity to support the rebalancing of inventory. Following the end of the second half, inventory is approaching the right level for the size of the business and we expect to improve operating leverage moving forward, especially since growth has accelerated over the start of FY 'twenty 2. Net profit after tax and earnings per share were materially impacted by certain adjusting items in this financial year, a net or 2 within the presentation provides further detail on the items impacting NPAT over the course of FY 2021. For instance, people costs are inclusive of a provision for the likely payment of Mighty8 tranche 34 purchase price installments.
As part of the sale agreement, payment of tranches 34 are contingent on the Mighty8 Founder and CEO remaining with the business until the delivery of the financial year 2023 results. In line with the accounting standards, tranche 34 payments will be considered as compensation for post combination services and as such treated as employee remuneration. The group will proportionally account for these expenses up until the respective payment date. It's important to highlight for income tax purposes, The $12,000,000 recognized as people costs is considered capital in nature and therefore no tax deduction is available. People costs are further inclusive of equity based compensation expense, driven by the recent award of options after the company's AGM in November 2020.
We're proud to have been there to support our customers when we will need it most, supplying critical products around the country during the height of the pandemic over the year. And then donating more than $2,500,000 of PPE or personal protective equipment to Australian charities. We continue to support Aussies and New Zealanders today, shipping millions of essential goods directly to their homes. We wanted to ensure adequate supply of PPE under any likely health scenario and we ended up having to write down some PPE stock as a result. Adjusted EBITDA, adjusted NPAT adjusted earnings per share, which excludes unrealized FX gains, equity based compensation and other adjusting items grew to $61,800,000 $42,900,000 $0.41 per share respectively.
Please refer to an extra 2 of this presentation for a detailed reconciliation of adjusting items. The newly acquired Midea team and operations are progressively being integrated into the Kogan Group. For the 7 months to 30 June 2021, Mighty Apes Trading showed strong sales over the Christmas peak trading period and end of financial year sales period too, contributing 9.8% of the group's overall gross profit. For a full 12 month period to 31 March 2021, which is Mighty Ape's financial year end, we are happy to announce that Mighty Ape achieved the forecasted EBITDA as disclosed in the ASX announcement on the 3rd December 2020. We have high hopes for the ongoing success of Mighty Ape, especially as we start listing Mighty Ape products on Kogan's websites and vice versa.
We are working to optimize group purchasing decisions and enhance logistics and operational systems and other synergies over the course of FY 'twenty 2. On to the key drivers of Group FY 'twenty one financial performance. Firstly, platform growth. As Ruslan mentioned, we're attracting more and more customers to our platform. Our strategic investment in marketing activities has enabled active customers to grow by 46.9 percent in the last 12 months.
This comprised of covid.comactivecustomers that grew to 3,200,000 and 98 active customers that grew to 764,000. As more of these savvy shoppers engage with our platform for the first time, our marketing investment is also expected to have ongoing long term benefits to our business through repeat purchasing from these incremental active customers and growth in Kogan First memberships. The company's inventory level has been widely discussed in this presentation and in previous announcements. I'm proud of our team's response to rebalance inventory levels. In the second half of the year, we placed a strong focus on promotional activity to support the rebalancing of inventory.
Following the end of the second half, inventory is approaching the right level for the business and we expect improved operating leverage moving forward. Exclusive brands continue to achieve year on year revenue growth with an increase of 62.5% on FY 2020 and a compound annual growth rate of 43.3% since FY 2020 9. As highlighted by Roussland previously, given the volatility over the COVID period, the compound annual growth rate from FY 'nineteen to FY 'twenty one may be a useful metric to assess the underlying growth of the business over the medium term. Exclusive brands also achieved gross profit growth of 63.4 percent on FY 'twenty and a compound annual growth rate of 52.7% since FY 'nineteen, contributing 51.6% to the group's overall gross profit in FY 'twenty one. This was achieved through ongoing investment in exclusive brands inventory to broaden our range and meet consumer demand from the growing base of active customers.
3rd party brands achieved growth in revenue and gross profit, delivering an increase of 18.9% and 10.1% on FY 'twenty, respectively, and a compound annual growth rate of 7.9% and 7.7%, respectively, since FY 'nineteen. The success of Kogan Marketplace. Each reporting period since its launch in late FY 2019, we have discussed the success of Kogan Marketplace. It has gone from strength to strength, increasing gross sales by 91% in FY 2021 compared to FY 2020. The platform continues to resonate with sellers with COVID Marketplace increasing the number of sellers significantly, while there continues to be a strong pipeline of new sellers about to be on boarded.
This is one of new sellers about to be onboarded. This is wonderful for competition, enabling many small, medium and large businesses to grow through the pandemic by appealing directly to Kogan's large community of active customers. Of course, it's also a real win for consumers as our selection grows rapidly, enabling more consumer choice. We are continually improving our proprietary marketplace platform, which will enable the business to achieve ongoing growth without a corresponding investment in inventory. The growth of Kogan Marketplace means that customers have more choice than ever, and we launched the Kogan marketplace in New Zealand prior to the end of the financial year.
Kogan First subscription revenue and GP increased 280.1% in FY 'twenty one when compared to FY Subscription revenues have been reported separately within this presentation, which I will take you through shortly. As mentioned earlier, we have a medium term goal of reaching 1,000,000 Kogan First members. Newly acquired Mighty Ape. As I discussed earlier, the newly acquired Mighty Ape team and operations progressively integrating into the Kogan Group. Trading for the 7 months to 30 June 2021 has strong sales over the peak Christmas trading period and the end of financial year sales period, with revenue and gross profit of 80,200,000 and $19,900,000 respectively.
Investments in the future. Variable costs predominantly consist of warehousing and selling costs. The increase in selling costs was largely driven by growing volumes of transactions, while the increase in warehousing costs was driven by the significant inventory holding referred to earlier. Variable costs also include 1 off logistics demurrage charges of $7,700,000 These charges were driven by 1 off warehousing and supply chain occurring from late 2020 to April 2021. As mentioned earlier, this has almost never previously occurred, and it was resolved prior to the financial year end.
We also continue to invest in our team members in order to incentivize and align their interests with our shareholders. The business has made strategic investments in team members, LTIs or long term incentives remain in place and people costs have increased year on year as a result. FY 'twenty one is also inclusive of equity based compensation expenses driven by the recent award of options for the company's AGM in November 2020. These options have been valued at grant date and are being expensed on a straight line basis in line with accounting standards and as described in the notice of meeting of the 2020 AGM. As previously mentioned, people costs includes $12,000,000 as a provision for the likely payment of MightyAbe Tranche 3 and Tranche 4 purchase price installments.
On the next page, we can see the gross profit mix for the year. As referred to earlier, exclusive brands generated 51.6 percent of the group's overall gross profit and continues to deliver the largest gross profit contribution across the business. 3rd party brands, Kogan Marketplace, Kogan Mobile and now Mighty8 and Kogan First are all material contributors to overall gross profit. Kogan First subscription revenues. In just its 2nd full year since it was launched late FY 'nineteen, it is 4.4% of overall gross profit, indicating the growth opportunity in the first.
Over the past 4 financial years, we have delivered growth in gross margin. While delivered margin after all logistics costs, contribution margin and adjusted EBITDA margin declined in FY 'twenty one from the level C in FY 'twenty and from our prior track record of growth. FY 'twenty one operating leverage was impacted by high levels of inventory in the second half of the financial year, which incurred significant warehousing costs. This led the company to focus on strong promotions to bring inventory to the right level relative to the size of the business. We take our responsibilities to ensure every dollar we spend is working hard for the business very seriously.
We continually review our overheads and investments and we're always working hard to improve this efficiency. When we create innovations and launch new growth plans for the business, we focus on scalable projects that leverage the assets we have already built and can offer asymmetric returns. When we invest in building our assets, we track return on investment very carefully. Our quick response to rebalancing inventory levels has been important and successful. Following the end of the second half, inventory is approaching the right level for the size of the business, and we expect improved operating leverage moving forward and back to the track record we delivered prior to second half of FY 'twenty one.
The group had a cash balance and net of drawn debt of $12,800,000 as at 30 June 2021. The group held $191,800,000 of inventory in warehouse at the end of the period, of which more than 99% of covent.com inventory and 94% of Mardi Ape inventory in warehouse was aged less than 3 65 days. Total inventory was $227,900,000 which includes inventory in transit and was an increase of $115,000,000 held at the same time last year. Financial assets and financial liabilities reflect the unrealized FX loss recognized against forward contracts, which is noncash. Trade and other payables reached a seasonal high following the end of the financial year peak sales period.
Acquisition payables reflects the tranche to paying of the Mardi Ape acquisition amount. The group significantly expanded its inventory levels to respond to forecasted demand leading out of the first half of 1. The company invested in inventory and operational capacity to be able to fulfill the growth we expected, increasing our payments to suppliers. The company ended up in a high inventory position, which led the business focused on strong promotions to bring inventory closer to the right level. The promotional activity to rightsize the inventory position, combined with higher warehousing costs and incurred the marriage, impacted cash flows from operating activities in the second half.
Refer to our next earnings presentation for further details on adjusting items. Overall, the group finished the period with a cash balance of $91,700,000 The group completed the Tranche I payment of the Mighty Ape acquisition and completed the $20,000,000 share repurchase claim during the period. I'll now hand back to Ruslan to discuss our outlook and some further detail on what's to come in Slide 22. Thank you.
Thanks, David. We're excited about the opportunities ahead as we to grow our platform and expand our portfolio. Turning to Slide 26. It's sometimes important to take stock and observe the opportunity available to us. The online retail market continues to grow rapidly in Australia and covid.com has consistently taken market share.
On top of that, most of you already know that online retail is in its infancy in Australia. NAB estimates that online retail is a mere 13.3% of total retail sales, far lower than comparable economies. But Online retail is growing quickly, and kogan.com is taking market share in that growing market. There remains a long runway ahead, and we're excited about the future. Kogan.com is a dynamic portfolio of businesses.
There's always more that we can do and new ways that we can delight our loyal customers. July 2021 unaudited management accounts show that year on year gross sales grew by 4.6% above July 2020. Gross margin improved on June 2021, while still below July 2020. Adjusted EBITDA was 2,100,000 dollars reflecting high operating costs, which are progressively reducing. Inventory was 253,400,000, comprising of $177,900,000 in warehouse and $37,500,000 in transit.
We have a strong balance sheet that supports the planned growth initiatives of the business, and Pilgrim First members were 147,000 at the end of July. Further to this, the 1st 18 days of August 2021 have shown strong acceleration above July 2021 performance, with gross sales 24.5 percent above July and gross profit 25% above July for the equivalent number of days in unaudited management accounts. Kogan.com has a strong balance sheet at 30 June 2021 and attractive short term and long term growth opportunities. To support the company with its growth plans, the Board has decided to conserve cash for business investments and growth purposes and has paused dividends and will not be declaring a FY 'twenty one final dividend. Over the next financial year, we expect strong growth in Kogan First memberships heading towards the medium term goal of 1,000,000 members, ongoing growth in exclusive brands, further enhancement and development of Kogan Marketplace, and we expect to see benefits from the full integration of My TAIP flowing through.
Also, to improve the company's capabilities, We anticipate potentially implementing logistics projects that would not require significant capital expenditure and can be supported by the company's balance sheet and improved operating leverage consistent with company's long term track record. Our Board is looking forward to the second half of the year with confidence. This concludes our presentation. David and I look forward to meeting with many of our shareholders over the coming days, virtually, of course. For those of you who have any questions or are interested in hearing more, please stay with us for the Q and A.
Thank you for your interest in kogan.com.
Thank you, Ruslan. Thank you, David. We have a number of questions that have been queued already. But just to remind everybody, if you have any questions, We might start with a couple of questions from Ariane Noerozi at UBS. First question, could you please talk through marketing investment in July August 'twenty one versus second half of FY 'twenty one?
Sure. Thank you, Arian, for your question. In terms of marketing investment, it's consistent with the second half of FY 'twenty one. And in terms of price investment, we are seeing margin improvement combined with acceleration in sales in the July August period. So the start of FY 'twenty two is seeing both revenue sales improvement and margin improvement.
So less price investment for your words.
And how big of a benefit was Afterpay promotions for August sales? And did you participate last year?
Yes. We our approach with the various payment providers and payment options for our customers is to give our customers a lot of choice. And you can see that in our checkout. We have a lot of choice available to our customers depending on how they want to pay. Afterpay is a very valued partner to Kogan and they do a great job, but we don't disclose any information about individual payment providers on our site.
Thanks, Whistler. Are you able to provide some color around year on year movements August comparable with the July commentary?
I think we already said that there's a return or a result of growth that includes covid.comgrowth, excluding Mighty8, in FY 2022 and an acceleration of that growth. So That's what we'll say. I'm happy to repeat that now.
Okay. Question from Jing Kyo, CEO. How long do you think it will take to finish resolving all of the inventory issues?
We're approaching a very comfortable level of inventory in the business now. That's why we've repeated 3 or 4 times that inventory is approaching the right level. Of course, the acceleration in sales through August is really helping with that. And I think we're very close to that point now. So It will be interesting in the way up to Christmas.
If you believe some commentary about supply chain issues, which are on the way, that there might be the other types of issues going on where there isn't enough stock market. So It's entirely possible that we will be at a position where we won't have enough inventory again like last year. But our comfort level, we aim for 3 to 4 months of stock and we're basically in that hitting time.
A couple of questions from Johan Falk from
and the repurchase behavior on which of active customers, which are customers recently acquired. And we're seeing some very healthy numbers there, and we're seeing obviously as a result of our product range and our platform and so on. But The biggest thing around that is our COVID-nineteen First initiative. And I know we've spoken about it a lot in our presentation. It's a very important part of we have disclosed that they're obviously shopping a lot more.
You can see that number growing very quickly. These are people who are showing commitment to Kogan, paying a subscription membership fee to say, hey, I want to be a Kogan first customer and in turn the business invests in those customers and gives them free shipping and additional discounts and so on. And it really is a win win relationship and that is a big focus of our business as outlined in the presentation.
A question from Owen Humphreys From Canaccord, is the dividend suspended indefinitely?
We call it a dividend pause. So we don't intend it to be, just intended indefinitely, the standard that we think that we're going to be able to deliver a return to operating leverage consistent with our track record over the last few years. So that's a no. It's not an indefinite suspension. That's a pause.
I have a question
from your line for Morningstar and I quote, you have huge growth in COVID first and most in July 2021. What was it really driven by? Lockdowns, marketing benefits for Cogan First members, other things? The Cogan First loyalty
program is the most incredible loyalty program in the country. If you're going to do multiple purchases online, there is no more rewarding program out there. And we're just getting started in terms of the promotional activity around it. You would have barely seen us promoted anywhere. We've been building out a lot of the functionality, a lot of the features, a lot of the customer offering.
And we've had a goal of hitting 1,000,000 COVID first subscribers in the near term. We expect see growth there accelerate and we'll be doing everything we can as a business to grow that cohort of customers. It's a combination a lot of things, most importantly, delivering on the offer to the customers and ensuring that you've got the right product at the right price with Speedy Logistics. And that will show that it keeps renewed subscribers.
Maybe just staying on the question of logistics, given you raised Another question from Owen Humphreys from Canaccord. Can you please elaborate on the logistics investment you're planning to make, expected return on investment in reducing the housing costs over the medium term?
The investment that we're talking about making is to potentially operate our own distribution center in combination with 3rd party logistics sensors, which we currently operate. And the way that we're potentially looking at doing that is a low CapEx model where we would potentially have a lease or buy, build, sell, lease back a facility and operate a facility. We believe and modeling is showing that we'll be able to reduce cost by doing that while also delivering ourselves a purpose built solution, enabling us to do some improvements in our logistics over time and have more control over that part of our operation into the medium term.
Couple of questions from Michael Holloman. And they're both in relation to the annexure 2 adjustments. The first one is, given you treated equity based compensation people payment as an adjustment to NPAT, does this mean to say that such equity based payments will not occur in future periods?
So the equity based compensation awards that were previously issued obviously can't be issued again, But there will continue to be awards to staff to retain and incentivize them consistent with other businesses. The reason why that they're part of an adjustment is because they're non cash, and that's also consistent with many other companies.
And the second question for Michael relates to with revenue and sales growth, at least in part benefiting from a shift to online retailers as a result of the pandemic, would it not have been better a better representation of underlying performance to maintain the COVID-nineteen adjusted stock provision related logistics costs.
So the COVID related stock provision is exclusively in relation to PPE. So we went out and, as we described in the presentation, purchased a lot of PPE to ensure that we could be there for Australians in any scenario. And as at financial year end, we've taken the opportunity to donate $2,500,000 of PPE and to write down a significant amount of PPE. We've never purchased PPE before. It's not part of our normal purchasing activity.
It's not a product we would ordinarily purchase. Did we get it right? Did we get it wrong? We'll leave others to judge. But it's clearly a one off because it's not part of the normal operations of the business, and it's not continuing in that fashion.
So we're not reordering that product and we're not reinvesting in that type of inventory. In terms of the logistics charges in an extra 2, We mentioned that $7,700,000 that has been determined and adjustment relates to detention or demurrage charges. So what that means is goods were sitting with our shipping providers in containers at the docks and we were unable to remove the containers from the yards within the specified period of time, which incurs a fine per day. The reason why we weren't able to remove the containers from the yard is because all of our warehouses were full. We've never dealt with this issue before.
It's caused by a combination of events, which we've spoken about over the last 6 months, and we resolved the issue in full by April. So we believe it is a one off. Notwithstanding that, and there's another question here in relation to logistics from an anonymous attendee, other than the demurrage charges. So notwithstanding the demurrage charges, logistics costs were very high And we haven't adjusted the unusually high level of logistics costs. So that's part of the actual variable costs that are included in these results.
And that's variable costs that are included in these results. And that's driven by the high inventory holding, including the requirement that we spin up a heap of warehouses to ensure that we can get our containers off the shipping yards as quickly as possible. Now that is naturally working its way down, which will help improve our operating leverage and reduce our variable costs moving forward. So hope that explains the answer to the question.
Sorry, thanks, David. Question for Ruslan from Nalene Henning.
What will be
the flow on effect or what do you see as the flow on effect to Kogan from the China issues?
I'd ask Nolene what China issues they are referring to. But if we assume that they're talking about the media coverage recently about disrupted supply chains, Look, that's exactly what's been going on and we've been talking about that for many months now. There's disrupted supply chains. We're seeing price inflation out of Asia. Shipping costs have gone up.
It's very hard to get containers onto ships and so on. So this all formed part of our decision making when we were making inventory management 6 or more months ago and how much to order, disrupted supply chains were part of that decision. And Obviously, now we're in a position where we have very healthy inventory and these disruptions continue to go on and there's lots of that they're going to disrupt others' ability to be able to get stock for Christmas. So we're happy with the decisions that we have made and the quality inventory that we have.
So Nolene, just to clarify, she was referring to the manufacturing of COVID products.
I have no idea what issues Nolane is referring to. Okay.
Maybe we can just touch on a question regarding acquisitions. There's a lot of covered off on MyTEA. And we've got a question coming from an investor that says that Matt Blatt was a good acquisition. However, given was bought at a relative high in the cycle. Do you think you overpaid for it?
Well, what I think is going to judge? We certainly don't believe we've overpaid. It's a business that's been a quality business organically built over 20 plus tiers with the quality management team, a more global customer base and growing customer base New Zealand. The New Zealand online retail market is growing fast and you can't judge an acquisition 6 months in. This is something that's going to continue to be a standalone operating business that's growing on its own.
Only is going to benefit from a lot of the synergies that are available between our businesses. So we can share a lot of our learnings and they can share a lot of their learnings and everyone within our group will be better off for it. So let's allow some more time to pass to save some of the fruit of this investment and some of the fruit of the synergies that we are working on delivering.
As you think about growth and funding for that growth, one shareholder pointed to the free cash in FY 2021. How do you think about the company's funding position, balance sheet, cash flows and so on going forward to fund the growth initiatives?
The company has all the cash it needs to fund its growth plans, including the logistics plans that we It's in our accounts that we have a facility available with Westpac. We've got a $90,000,000 plus absolute cash position at 30 June and a net cash position of $12,000,000 and that's with $100,000,000 $115,000,000 more stock than at this time last year. We've mentioned that some of that stock has already been unwound at the course of July August, and that obviously facilitates an improvement to our cash position. So we're comfortable with the balance sheet of the business and we believe we'll be able to deliver a return to operating leverage or a resumption of organic growth in Kogan and all of the growth initiatives that we'll refer to in this document from our current balance sheet.
If I
can just remind people to put questions into the Q and A facility, that would be appreciated. A point of a clarification question from Ariane Nirozzi from UBS. Do cogen dotcom excluding my ITA gross sales growth year on year in July, the group grew significantly year on year but ITA was only included from December.
Yes, that's right. So overall, the group in combination grew 5%. COVID was marginally down in July, but it was up materially in August.
Great. There was a lot of conversation about COVID first members in the pack today, what's being done to equally tap non Coden First members to drive sales and growth.
There's a lot of attention on Coden First because we see that as a very important part of the Obviously, we would love for everyone to become a COVID first customer. So Yes. So a lot of customers buy from outside bag, get visibility into the whole lofters that the first one is getting the loyalty benefits. So we will continue investing in those benefits. We'll continue investing in the program, and we are seeing great results.
It is a legitimate win win with strong benefits to customers. And we see that as a way of building the subscription elements of our business that will drive long term
customer engagement. Are there any plans, Ruslan, to improve
Yes. We have a lot of initiatives and pipeline of features that we're continually rolling out on the site. If you look at our site and our apps on any given day, they will be better than the day for. There is a dedicated team working on industry leading features and innovations on our site.
Is Mighty Ape was the first time Kogan went abroad, entered New Zealand. Are there plans another question, are there plans to expand to other geographic locations?
So with Mighty8, we already had an operation in New Zealand actually prior to Mighty and creates a lot of synergies. I think it's important to turn our minds to the graph where we show the Australian e commerce market and the huge opportunity there because that shows we are seeing rapid growth in Australian e commerce, but it is still way behind the rest of the developed world and other advanced economies where you're seeing e commerce have much higher penetration. So there are forecasts to say that Australian e commerce will continue to grow very fast. And the other important element of that slide is our demonstration that shows that our business wins significant market share year in, year out in e commerce in Australia. So we're in an environment where we're seeing the market grow really quickly and us very quickly gaining market share in that market.
Thanks, Wilson. A question from Andrew Turner. Are the contributions from insurance and energy in addition to mobile's gross profit? And what are your ambitions for these areas, for these products services?
So if you look at
the gross profit slide on Page 21, you can see an item called other revenue. That's a combination of insurance and energy and some others as referred to in the footnote. We only break them out individually once they become material. So until then, they're just grouped together as other revenue. In terms of potential size or contribution from some of the newer verticals that are not yet broken out.
The ones to look out for would be COVID credit cards, which is performing pretty well and is growing fast, and COVID Internet. So, when they're material, we'll break them out. Until then, it will all be part of other revenue.
Great. Just conscious of time, and so we'll probably only have a couple more questions left because we've already gone over. But in terms of back on to inventory, what is your solution regarding inventory obsolescence, inventory write down for the longer term?
Managing inventory has been a highlight of our business for 15 years and we often joke that we're a statistics business masquerading as an e commerce company. So we really pride ourselves on being able to detect the products that customers want and using our efficient supply chain to be able to deliver extreme value in the most in demand products. As such, we use those algorithms and systems to be able to manage our inventory and to manage our pricing and manage our promotional activity. And you can see the results of that over the last 15 years of our business.
Maybe one final question to close off. And obviously, it's been a very challenging year and a half now with COVID, and you've done incredibly well navigating through it. How do you see Kogan in a post COVID world. In terms of, the kind of margins that you might be able to get up to, the services you're providing, your engagement with customers, can you paint a bit of a picture for those on the call today?
Well, It's we live in a very dynamic environment with lots of things changing and supply chain disruptions, lockdown, no lockdown, talks now of reopening with lots of COVID in the community. And It's a very hard environment to predict. If you look at we've sort of had this period in Australia where We chased the dream of COVID-zero and managed to pull it off for quite a while. There were many months there when shopping centers are packed and people are out and about in full stadiums and so on. What we're seeing now in the rest of the world is obviously people and communities learning to live with COVID, trying to get their vaccinations up and environments where people are spending more and more online and shopping more and more online because they realize that life must go on, but they're taking the calculated risks.
They're saying it's really important for me to go out for dinner with my mates. That's an important part for me. But when it comes to buying these items, I don't need to go to a crowded shopping center. I'm going to do that online. So it's a very hard environment to predict.
And as we have done, we will continue to be agile. We will continue to respond to the environment around us, and we will continue to build our business and be there for our customers when they need us most.
Thank you very much for the presentation today and the session answering all the questions that have come in. As you said, Ruslan, you'll be seeing many people virtually over the next few days on roadshow. But Well done on the results and very exciting period ahead as you execute on your growth strategy.
Thanks, Ron, and thank you very much, everyone, for your attention.