Good morning and welcome. My name is Brodie Arnhold, and I'm the Chairman of Shaver Shop Group Limited. Today, we're holding our second virtual AGM using streaming technology provided by our share register Link Market Services. We, as your directors, would have preferred to have been able to meet face-to-face, of course. This is, fingers crossed, this is the last year we'll host our AGM virtually. However, given the global pandemic and ongoing difficulties in traveling and meeting safely, a virtual AGM is considered the most appropriate approach again this year. Please bear with us if we encounter any technical difficulties. We doubt there'll be any, but if we do experience any technical issues today, a short recess or adjournment may be required depending on the number of shareholders and directors being affected. If this occurs, I'll advise you accordingly.
I draw your attention to slide two regarding forward-looking statements contained in this presentation. It's now 11:00 A.M., Melbourne time, the appointed time for holding our 2021 annual general meeting. Notice of this meeting was duly given out, and the meeting has been properly convened. I'm advised that we have a quorum. I therefore have the pleasure in declaring this meeting open. Thank you all for attending. We'll turn to the items of business and voting later in the meeting. Please note that any shareholders, proxy holders, or shareholder company representatives may vote. Voting under all resolutions will be conducted by way of a poll. Shareholders attending the meeting online will be able to cast their vote using the electronic voting card received when online registration is validated. Please refer to the virtual meeting guide or use the helpline specified in the AGM portal.
Questions regarding each item of business will be discussed prior to disclosing the proxy votes received on each item. This year, we're taking questions on the phone as well as online. To utilize the telephone facility, holders must use their unique PIN provided to them by Link Market Services. If you don't have a phone PIN and would like to ask a question via phone, please contact Link on 1800 993 63 now to get your PIN. When you dial into the conference center, you'll be asked to mute your online sound and listen to the meeting by phone. There's a delay between the teleconference system, which is effectively live, and the online system, so it's important that you only listen through your phone. If you wish to ask a question, you'll need to dial star one on your phone's keypad.
This will indicate to the teleconference moderator that you wish to ask a question. The moderator will require your name and will introduce you, prompting you to ask your question at the relevant time. In order to ensure that all holders have a reasonable opportunity to comment and ask questions, I request the holders do not ask more than two questions at any one time. Following our review of each item of business, general business questions will be taken. Shareholders participating online through the virtual meeting website, please click on Ask Question button, type your answer, and click Submit. I encourage shareholders attending online and who have questions to send their questions through as soon as possible. Shareholder questions received prior to the meeting will be addressed during the general business question session. Now under the agenda.
Following some introductory remarks from myself, I'll hand over to Shaver Shop's Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, who will speak to a number of the growth drivers that position Shaver Shop strongly for the years ahead. After that, Cameron will provide a brief trading update on what has been a very volatile first four months of 2022. From there, we'll move on to the formal part of the meeting and voting on the various items of business that were outlined in the notice of annual general meeting. With that, I'd like now to introduce you to your directors. Shaver Shop's board is made up of five independent non-executive directors and one executive director, Cameron Fox. Like you, they're all participating virtually. Craig, Brian, and myself have now been working with Shaver Shop for approximately 10 years to a very deep understanding of the business.
Trent Peterson joined the board shortly before our IPO in 2016, and we're also fortunate that Debra Singh, our newest director, joined the organization in September of last year. Craig is the chairman of our audit and risk committee, and Trent is chairman of our nomination and remuneration committee. The members of these committees is clearly outlined in our corporate governance statement from our investor relations website and was lodged with the ASX. Also present today is Daniel Rosenberg, our audit partner from PwC. Daniel will be available to answer questions on our financial accounts at the appropriate time. Jeremy Wickens from Norton Rose Fulbright, who will assist you with any technical questions which you require legal advice during the meeting, is also present.
We also have the team from Link Market Services who are facilitating this virtual meeting with their AGM technology and shareholder support services. Shaver Shop is a remarkably resilient business. This is in part due to the sector we operate in, which tends not to be significantly affected by changes in the economy. While we're classified as discretionary retail, history has shown that many of our products are essential from the consumer standpoint. Grooming and personal care products are required in both positive and negative stages of any cycle and across all demographics. Shaver Shop is a specialist retailer operating in a mass market that has proven to be largely insulated from the economic downturns. We also have global suppliers introducing new product innovation on an ongoing basis.
Many of these new products are designed to enable our customers to get the same beauty outcome at home that they used to be able to get in a specialty salon or barbershop. These DIY solutions are also tend to be more cost-effective, which supports demand during economic downturns. However, unlike previous cycles and downturns which supported demand for Shaver Shop products largely for financial reasons, both financial and government-imposed drivers led to significant demand across several of the product categories that we sell. Hair clippers, long-term hair removal solutions for women, hair styling products, and body groomers all benefited from COVID-19 led changes in demand over the last 18 months. However, demand has not been uniformly strong. As the nature of lockdowns have changed, the narrative from government officials has also changed. This has had demand and propensity to spend.
This has led to significantly volatility in trading and quite challenging operations for the entire Shaver Shop team. The management and store teams have done an exceptional job overcoming the challenges, with the business in significantly better shape today than prior to the pandemic. This is a tribute to the culture, the passion of our team members in being able to adapt and drive positive results from an incredibly difficult operating environment. The volatility in trading has also been reflected in our share price, most particularly at the start of the pandemic. More recently, our share price has stabilized despite the extended lockdowns in Victoria, New South Wales, and the ACT, as well as in the North Island of New Zealand. Since the start of 2020, our share price is up more than 50%, and we've returned AUD 0.103 per share by way of dividends in that time.
When you look at the 5-year performance trends of the business, we set the following records in 2021. Sales were up 9.6% to AUD 213.7 million. This led to a record in net profit after tax of AUD 17.5 million, up 68.3% on last year's AUD 10.4 million. With a relatively fixed cost base, Shaver Shop generates significant operating leverage from the top-line sales growth, and this together with strong gross profit margins, supported the outstanding profit results in 2021. The board remains very focused on managing capital efficiently with return on invested capital increasing to 24.1% last year. We also significantly increased capital return to shareholders with fully franked dividends of AUD 0.082 per share, up 71% on last year's AUD 0.048 per share for partially franked dividends.
Our key financial indicators are very strong. We've got a very sound balance sheet with no debt. This provides us with the flexibility to continue investing for growth while at the same time maintaining a healthy dividend stream for shareholders. Unless we find a highly accretive investment opportunity that we believe will drive strong growth and increase returns for shareholders, we intend to continue to increase our dividend payout. While we have no debt on our balance sheet today, and while trading and economic conditions remain volatile, we've decided to maintain a relatively conservative capital approach. Moving on to our progress against the key strategic initiatives I outlined in last year's AGM. Our numbers suggest and anecdotal feedback from suppliers further supports that we gained market share in our core hair removal categories over the last 12 months.
Shaver Shop completed 2.4 million transactions with customers last year, and we now have almost 800,000 members on our email marketing database. We continue to make progress in further understanding our customer and building customer lifetime value. After rolling out the option for email receipts from in-store transactions, we've been better able to understand customer behavior with online journeys established to drive enhanced engagement and more relevant offers. We're working to increase transaction frequency, of course. Our suppliers continue to innovate, and we're working very closely with them on our new product launches. For example, the Wahl stainless steel trimmer, one of Shaver Shop's top-selling products over the last four years, has now been launched in a waterproof version exclusive to Shaver Shop.
Oral-B's new iO range of electronic toothbrushes were launched exclusively with Shaver Shop in Australia, the only market in the world where exclusivity was granted. In addition to new innovations, we're also expanding our range of men's and women's fragrances, as well in men's haircare with American Crew. These are natural additions to our lineup and complement our core categories. Pleasingly, we've been able to continue to secure exclusive access to new products, with 26 of our top 30 products being exclusive to Shaver Shop last financial year. Lastly, in terms of digital excellence, our ongoing investment in Shaver Shop omni-retail experience continues to pay dividends. Online sales of AUD 61.2 million, representing 28.6% of total sales in FY 2021.
Investment in this area continuing with a significantly more personalized and engaging online experience that more closely resembles experience in one of the Shaver Shop stores. We're dissecting our customer data to better segment and target cohorts with relevant offers that are suited to their interests, and we're on track to start leveraging our data through AI. We're also making it even easier for customers to transact with Shaver Shop by offering traditional payment mechanisms as well as several buy now, pay later schemes. Shaver Shop's made significant progress on many fronts despite the challenges brought about by the pandemic. That said, we still see significant potential for our business, whether it's in refining and improving our social media presence, continuing to expand our category mix, increasing our brand awareness, particularly in New Zealand, or most significantly, leveraging the now significant customer database that we have.
As we move towards our most important trading period, we are well-positioned to capitalize now that most of our stores have reopened. We're confident that we have the right strategies, team, product, range, promotional plans in place to deliver strong returns for shareholders in FY 2022 and years to come. In closing, I'd like to express my sincere thanks on behalf of the board and our shareholders to the entire Shaver Shop team. Your passion for this business, your ongoing pursuit for customer service excellence has been remarkable and is what has contributed to Shaver Shop emerging from the pandemic in an even stronger position than when it began. I'll now hand you over to Cameron Fox, our Managing Director and CEO. Thank you.
Thank you, Brodie, and good morning, everyone. I would also like to thank the Shaver Shop team for their efforts over the last 18 months. Under some extremely challenging circumstances, our business has continued to flourish, and our focus on the customer has not wavered. Our store teams have been particularly resilient, managing through several snap and longer-term lockdowns. Despite this, they have returned to work with the same passion, dedication, and work ethic that has supported Shaver Shop's success over many years. I'd like to spend some time reviewing some of the factors that should support Shaver Shop's long-term growth on slide 11.
Firstly, we operate in an attractive and growing personal care and beauty market. In our specialty area of men's grooming, we believe there are even stronger tailwinds as men continue to be more beauty conscious and use more tools to cultivate the look they desire. We estimate that our total addressable market is approximately AUD 7.5 billion-AUD 8.0 billion, and today we hold around 2.5%-3% market share, meaning we have plenty of room to grow in the future. We have strong unprompted brand awareness today, but we can do more to further cement our position as the leading omni-channel retailer in our sector. This is especially true in New Zealand, where we have traded very strongly over the last two years.
While we still have relatively low brand awareness across this region, we believe this positions us very well to grow further in New Zealand as we roll out our new stores and improve our online offering. Thirdly, we are seeing very positive trends in how we are leveraging our customer data and how we are building out additional customer journeys and technologies to better segment, target, and engage with our loyal customer base. We continue to expand our product and category ranges and have been able to maintain exclusivity on a large percentage of our top-selling lines. Maintaining exclusivity in our core categories will remain a key focus in years to come. Our store network is performing well when open, of course, and we continuously review our operating metrics to ensure we maximize returns from each location.
We have committed to opening three new stores in Australia this year, and we are relocating two more. We also see the opportunity to open five or six new stores in New Zealand, so we're keen to get across the Tasman as soon as possible when the borders reopen. Finally, in terms of optimizing the store network, we continue to refit key doors and bring them to our latest brand standards. Lastly, on growth drivers, we're investing in new technologies that will help simplify internal processes, improve customer service, and drive efficiency across our business. These investments are being made across our stores as well as our national support office. These growth drivers mean Shaver Shop remains extremely well-positioned as a business to generate strong returns for shareholders in the years to come.
Now, the next slide illustrates how the omni-retail investments that we called out in early FY 2019 have underpinned the exponential growth in online sales over the last few years and led to the online channel now representing close to 29% of total Shaver Shop sales. Over the last four years, our online sales have grown at an average rate close to 55% per annum. That's an outstanding result. We processed more than 500,000 online orders last year, or around 21% of our total transactional volume. In dollar terms, online represents close to 29% of total sales. This reflects the higher average transactional values coming through our online channel due to changes in product mix. Website visitation continues to grow strongly due to brand awareness as well as improvements that we've made in organic and paid search activity.
We feel we are the leading omni-channel retailer in our core categories, but we still see many areas of opportunity, including improving our social media presence. As a result, we believe our online channel will continue to grow and increase share of sales over the long term, albeit perhaps not at the same growth rates that we have experienced over the past four years. That brings me to the average contribution by sales channel on slide 13. As a multi-channel retailer, we as a management team often get asked whether we prefer for shoppers to purchase online or in store. The reality is that we are happy for our customers to shop with us whichever way they prefer, and the relative contribution margins from each channel support this.
Average contribution margin is close to 20% both in store and online, which means our focus can be 100% on ensuring we provide the best customer experience whatever channel our customers choose. We truly believe that for the personal care and grooming sector, a multi-channel approach with compelling in-store and online offerings provides the best possible shopping experience for our customers. That ultimately this will drive higher customer loyalty and lifetime value than a purely online or in-store model. Moving on to slide 14. Shaver Shop's customer service record is absolutely first class. We measure customer experience at every store, every day, every hour, and we review and take action on the feedback we receive from our customers about their in-store experience. We use this data as a continual improvement mechanism as we strive to delight our customers with every single shopping interaction.
This is reflected in our net promoter score being 89, near its highest ever level, and customer experience being ranked 9.8 out of a maximum score of 10. I'm extremely proud of these results. Based on the market research we have recently undertaken, we have made further progress on our brand being associated with a highly satisfying shopping experience. Moving on to slide 15. Pleasingly, the growth in our business is seeing us increase both active customers as well as those customers who wanna receive ongoing communication from Shaver Shop through our email marketing database. We had almost 500,000 active online customers last financial year, and we now have approximately 800,000 members in our marketing database.
Many of these customers have only been introduced to Shaver Shop in the last 12-24 months, which means we have a fantastic opportunity to convert these into repeat customers with high lifetime value. Pleasingly, we are seeing this happening through our online channel. An increasing percentage of our sales are coming through returning customers with more than 70% of our active online customers since quarter three FY 2021 having shopped with us before. From a revenue perspective, both the value and proportion of our online sales from returning customers are increasing over time, as you can see in the right-hand graph on this slide. This shows that we have an increasing recurring revenue stream over time.
Now we will, of course, continue to seek new customers to our business and continue to build our marketing database as we believe the breadth of our product offering is still not fully recognized by the consumer. Now I move to slide 17. We are seeing an increase in customers returning to Shaver Shop at Shaver Shop and very high levels of customer service. What have we actually learned about our customers or consumer insight over the last 18-24 months? Well, first and foremost, personal care, health, and wellbeing has never been more important. Many of the products we sell enable our customers to look and feel great from the comfort of their homes. In terms of customer behavior or consumer behavior, extended lockdowns benefit Shaver Shop as customers still have personal grooming needs.
When stores are closed, unsurprisingly, our online sales grow. Customers have recognized that Shaver Shop is a leader in hair removal, hair styling, and personal care appliances, which has led to further improvement in our unprompted brand awareness in Australia. As the narrative around lockdowns change and government officials begin to discuss stores reopening to the general public, online sales slow significantly as consumers prepare for the stores to reopen. Now importantly, in-store sales rebound with intensity when stores reopen. While online sales then start to moderate, they generally remain higher than the prior year. We believe this reflects the fact that while many shoppers choose to race back to stores when they reopen, some shoppers remain cautious and choose to continue to purchase online. The pandemic has also made customers comfortable shopping online.
As an omni-channel retailer, this works very well for us, both from an in-store perspective and online sales as both channels continue to grow. Now, another key observation is that during lockdown, men tend to grow more stubble and beards with a corresponding increase in consumer demand for beard trimmers. This transitions towards our clean shaving categories like men's electric shavers and men's manual shaving when corporate offices reopen. Pleasingly, we are the market leaders in both beard trimmers and men's shavers, so we are very well placed from a categories perspective, both during lockdowns and after they conclude. When consumers do return to store, they are generally already well-educated about the products they wish to buy, often having researched online before coming to a store and therefore having a very strong intent to purchase.
While foot traffic is lower, browsing and dwell times are lower, sales conversion is actually higher, leading to a much more efficient sales process for our in-store teams. We've also been pleased to see that customers overall are generally very considerate and respectful about the new check-in requirements and health and safety regulations that our teams must adhere to. In summary, we are very pleased for our stores to be back open as it provides the best experience for both our customers and our store teams. This provides a nice transition to now discuss our trading update and our outlook. Clearly, as Brodie mentioned, the first four months have been challenging for all discretionary retailers that have operations in Victoria, the ACT, New South Wales or New Zealand.
Government-imposed trading restrictions have led to Shaver Shop losing approximately 39% of available in-store trading days in the period from July 1, 2021 through to November 7, 2021. With that context, over the period from July 1, 2021 through to November 7, 2021, total sales have decreased just 0.9% versus last year, but are up 15.7% versus the same period two years ago. While in-store sales have suffered, online sales have remained incredibly strong, up 58.6% versus the prior corresponding period and up 329.4% compared to two years ago. This means online sales have represented more than half of Shaver Shop's total sales on a year-to-date basis.
Pleasingly, when stores have reopened across New South Wales, the ACT, and Victoria, we have seen a very strong rebound in sales, with total corporate sales being up 17.4% since New South Wales stores reopened on the eleventh of October of this year. On a state basis, New South Wales corporate store sales have increased 51.2% versus the prior corresponding trading period since the New South Wales store network reopened on the eleventh of October of this year. This very strong result is partly due to the last six franchise stores we acquired in February 2021. For more context in Victoria, since our stores fully reopened to the public on the thirtieth of October 2021, we have seen total Vic sales growth of 28.8% compared to the corresponding period last year.
These are very encouraging signs and provide increased confidence for the important events of Black Friday, Cyber Week, Christmas and of course, Boxing Day promotion, which are all upon us. While stock supply has been difficult to forecast on some lines, we've been planning and working with suppliers for many months to ensure we have adequate stock cover to support our seasonal promotions. As a result, we do not currently foresee any material risk to sales from supply chain challenges. Also, a reminder, we opened our new store in Bunbury, WA, two weeks ago and have committed to open two more stores in the second half of the financial year. We continue to maintain a cautious approach to new store openings, however, we are highly confident these stores will deliver attractive incremental returns.
Finally, in terms of outlook, having regard to the ongoing uncertainties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the importance of the upcoming Christmas and Boxing Day trading periods to our full-year results, Shaver Shop does not believe it is appropriate at this point in time to provide guidance on FY 2022 sales or earnings. Now, that concludes my presentation today. Thank you for your ongoing support and for attending the AGM today remotely, of course. I will now hand you back to Brodie.
Thank you, Cameron. We'll now move to items of business. After this, we'll address any general shareholder questions for the board or CEO in a Q&A session. Resolution-specific questions, we'll answer these as we move through each of the resolutions. Our company secretary's confirmed that the notice of meeting's been sent to all shareholders and other persons entitled to receive it within the notice period. The matters requiring consideration today are outlined in detail in the notice of the meeting. The notice of the meeting is taken as read. We'll be conducting a poll today for all items of business. You're welcome to enter your vote online at any point during the meeting, and we'll hold the poll open for five minutes following the conclusion of today's meeting.
Votes will be counted after the end of the meeting, and voting results will be published on the ASX and Shaver Shop investor relations website. Shareholders can cast their vote using the electronic voting card received after validating online registrations. To validate registrations, you'll be asked to enter your security holder reference number or holder identification number, SRN or HIN, plus postcode if you're in Australia or your country if you're outside of Australia. To then cast your vote, click the Get Voting Card button. Proxy votes have been submitted and will be set out on the slide shown for each resolution. As indicated on the proxy form in the notice of meeting, my intention as chair is to vote all discretionary or undirected proxies held by me in favor of each resolution.
The first item for consideration is the financial statements of the company and reports of the directors and the auditors of the company for the financial year 30 June 2021. The report will be tabled but will not be subject of a resolution, as it is not required by the Corporations Act. Our auditor, Daniel Rosenberg from PwC, is here to respond to any questions. There were no questions on the financial report received prior to the meeting. The statements and reports are now laid before the meeting. I open the floor to questions and discussion. For each resolution, I'll ask our moderator if there are any questions from the phone lines first before moving to any questions that have been raised online. Operator, are there any questions?
Chair, there are no questions from the telephone audience.
Thank you. Now to our Company Secretary, Larry Hamson. Larry, are there any online questions on the financial statements?
No, Mr. Chairman. No online questions.
Are there any further questions?
No, Mr. Chairman.
As there are no further questions, I'll now move to the second item of business. Item two is in relation to the adoption of the remuneration report. Operator, are there any phone questions in relation to this item of business?
There are no questions, Chair.
Thank you. Larry, are there any online questions in relation to the remuneration report?
No, Mr. Chairman. No online questions.
As there are no further questions, I'll now disclose the way in which proxy votes have been directed for the item two. Please note that for all resolutions, I'll be casting the undirected or open proxies given to me in favor of the motion. Thank you. Let's now move to the next item of business. In accordance with our constitution, Craig Mathieson retires by rotation, and being eligible for election, it's put to the shareholders that he be re-elected as director of the company. Craig became a director on Shaver Shop's board in 2011. He brings to the board extensive experience in finance and banking, general management, property, and investment management. He's been a valuable member of the board over this time, and we're fortunate to have someone with his deep and broad experience in our business.
Operator, are there any questions in relation to Craig's reappointment?
Chair, there are no questions.
Larry, are there any online questions?
No, Mr. Chairman. No online questions. Thank you.
As there are no further questions, I'll now disclose the way in which the proxy votes have been directed for item four and encourage shareholders who haven't already done so, cast your vote. Thank you. We'll now move to item four. Item four is in relation to approving the amended LTI plan. The LTI plan is designed to align the interests of management and shareholders. This approval will, among other things, enable the company to continue to incentivize its executive directors and leaders within the business without affecting its capacity to issue equity securities under ASX Listing Rule 7.1. Because shares issued under the amended LTI plan during the three years following the date of this meeting will not be taken into account for calculations of the company's 15% capacity limit under ASX Listing Rule 7.1.
Operator, are there any questions in relation to item four from the phones?
There are no questions, Chair.
Larry, are there any online questions?
No, there are no online questions, Mr. Chairman.
I'll now disclose the way in which proxy votes have been directed for item four. Consistent with all other resolutions, I'll be casting the undirected proxies given to me in favor of the motion. Now moving to the last item of business, the approval of the issue of securities to Mr. Cameron Fox, our CEO and Managing Director. Under the ASX Listing Rules, shareholder approval is required for the issue of shares to a director. The allocation of shares to Cameron that is contemplated by this resolution is relatively consistent with the allocation from last year. That being said, we've now changed the performance period in the issue from three separate tranches based on one year, two years, and three-year terms to one tranche for the three-year term. Operator, are there any questions in relation to this item of business?
There are no questions, Chair.
Larry, are there any shareholder questions from the AGM portal?
No, Mr. Chairman.
I'll now disclose the way in which the proxy votes have been directed for item five, and I encourage all shareholders to cast their vote. We'll now move to general business questions. Are there any general business questions from the phone lines operator?
There are no questions from the phone lines, Chair.
Larry, are there any general business questions from the online portal?
Yes, there are, Mr. Chairman. The first question is from Austin Taylor. It reads, "Shaver Shop announced that it has now completed the buyback of all its network stores. From both a financial and operations perspective, what are the benefits of this?
Thank you, Larry. I'll start with that, and then Cameron, you can chime in if you have anything further to add. We've commenced the buybacks about seven or eight years ago with Shaver Shop. From a financial perspective, obviously it's fairly clear that we get an increased sales revenue, which now is part of the revenue for the company as well as the EBITDA from the stores. They're all trading profitably, so they're all very positive contributors towards the EBITDA. It's also allowed from an operational perspective to have complete control of the network. This includes marketing, buying, merchandising, and also the fit-outs for all the retail outlets. From our perspective, it was fantastic to have the franchisees involved on the way through.
There came a point in time where we felt we were the better custodians of the stores, so we acquired them back, and they continue to perform very well. Larry, were there any further questions?
Yes, there is another question from Austin Taylor. In previous meetings and reports, management has spoken about the hybrid sales strategy with physical stores acting as distribution hubs, supplemented with online sales providing increased selection and scalability. Has COVID-19 and extended lockdowns changed this strategy at all?
I'll ask Cameron Fox to answer that question. Cameron, are you comfortable to answer that question?
You may be on mute. Apologies. I just gave a great answer then I was on mute, so I'll start again. Yeah, look, the strategy is pretty consistent. Austin's absolutely spot on. We do have our stores acting as mini distribution centers for distribution of online orders. We're obviously seeing, I think our omni-channel strategy really come to the fore, as we discussed in the presentation. The benefit I think of being a strong online retailer through lockdown is we're seeing a significant uptake in online sales over that period. Obviously when stores reopen, we're getting a pretty significant uptick in our bricks and mortar business. The only subtle changes we do see through the period of lockdowns is product mix changes, which we have called out as well.
We do see some categories, such as IPL, a category which is long-term hair removal solutions for females being particularly strong over lockdown periods, and also hair clippers, you know, as barbers are closed, et cetera. Our hair clipper category sales have been very strong over the lockdown periods and therefore we tweak, you know, our marketing communication and our communication strategy to ensure we optimize that opportunity over the lockdown period, which I think we've done a pretty good job of.
Thank you, Cameron. Larry, are there any further questions from the online portal?
Yes. There's one final question from Austin Taylor. It reads, great to see that customer NPS has increased significantly. 89 is a world-class result. What do you believe has driven this? Do you believe there will be permanent changes in customer purchasing behavior in a post-COVID world?
Yeah, I might jump in there, Brodie, if that's okay.
Yep.
Yeah, look, I think in terms of the NPS has been increasing for some period of time, and I do think that partially goes down to investment in staff training and the culture at store level. Hopefully, any customers who have gone into our stores have experienced the firsthand passion that our store teams have. We've got a wonderful retail team, a wonderful retail director, and just a very passionate field force. We really do love what they do. I think that'll continue over time. The other thing which has contributed to a high NPS score is some of those refits that we have undertaken. Our research has indicated that one of the opportunities for us is basically, you know, upgrading the merchandising standards of our stores.
When we've done our refits for our full refit stores such as Broadway and Sydney, the in-store experience for the customer has improved, which has therefore driven an uptake or an uplift in the overall NPS score. We still have a refit program where we're gonna intend to refit the big doors, and hopefully, that further drives improvements to the customer experience, in store and also supports higher NPS scores in the future.
Thank you, Cameron. Larry, were there any other questions in the online portal?
No, Mr. Chairman. That concludes the questions that we've received.
Great. Well, thank you very much. As there's no more further questions, time to finalize your voting if you've not already done so. The poll will remain open for a further five minutes. You may obtain the results of the poll later today by visiting the company's website or the ASX. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your attendance and interest and for your support of Shaver Shop. That ends the formal part of the Shaver Shop annual general meeting for 2021. I now officially declare the meeting closed. On behalf of all your directors, I wish you a very great day.