Hello, good morning, and thank you so much. I'll make sure that we get through the presentation as quickly as possible and make up the time. I'm pleased to share that we, this has been a really strong period of trade for Uni group . We've delivered impressive sales growth with solid top-line results and healthy gross profit margins, proving that our model continues to resonate with our customers. That's why we're investing not only in stores and systems and operations, but importantly in our people. Developing talent, building succession for key roles, and strengthening the depth of capability across the business. That's central to driving sustainable momentum. By laying these foundations, we better position ourselves for long-term growth. I'll move on to slide four. A few key callouts from this slide. Route sales $333.3 million, up 15.5% on the prior corresponding period.
Underlying EBIT of $54.6 million, up $7.5 million versus pcp, or up 15.9%. Impressively, the team lifted gross margins 100 basis points, while we remained diligent on pricing despite the noise in the marketplace. We also invested wisely in team capability, retaining key players, attracting exciting new talent, and proudly paying higher than anticipated bonus, reflecting the strong trading period. Perfect Stranger opened five new doors to achieve a 19-store footprint with like-for-like sales growth up 25.5%, which is on top of a 7.4% growth the prior year. Universal Store like-for-like sales growth of 13% on a basically flat performance last year opened five new stores and four new stores, four stores relocated into preferred and better performing locations within the same centers.
We continue to offer on-trend and differentiated product, adding new brands, collaborating with existing brands, and refining private labels to ensure the offer is fresh and sells profitably. I really must commend all team members about their disciplined approach to inventory management. CTC THRILLS Worship like-for-like retail sales up 2.9%, demonstrating again growth on growth. The network is now eight stores with two new openings and two legacy stores closed within the year. The wholesale market does continue to be volatile, and sales were down 13.8%, driven by a small number of key retail accounts of the THRILLS brand. Worship, from a much smaller base, is in growth, up 10.5% on pcp. Given the tAryff situation in the U.S., we have scaled back import in half to FY 2025. You'll recall we recognized a $13.6 million goodwill impairment based on the adverse wholesale performance.
The focus for CTC is driving retail forward, which is key to accelerating our growth objectives. Moving on to the next slide. This slide is a good graphic summary of our results, and Ethan will go into a bit more depth with you. Some key callouts on this slide: 61.1% gross margin, up 100 basis points, and an acknowledgement I'd like to give to the entire team achieving this result. It takes exceptional teamwork starting from product, design, buying, selections, moving through to allocations, distribution, marketing, shop floor, and online execution, and ultimately supported by all of the business support functions. The key to this result is customer centricity flowing through every department and shared with a shared purpose. Online sales up 8.6%, growing to 13.3% of sales, which is a really solid result in the low discount model business. Underlying EBIT and NPAT up 15.9% and 15.2% respectively.
Earnings per share, 14.6% or $0.454, and underlying cash flow remains strong, up 23.3% to $98 million. We're very pleased to offer a second half dividend to $0.165. Just to call out a few of our business trends on this slide, like-for-like growth, finding post-COVID stability with a six-year average of 8.3%, the group now sits at 111 physical stores, and group sales have more than doubled in the past five years, from $150 million when we first listed in FY 2020 to $333 million last year. The team's ability to continue to deliver growth despite operating in a very volatile and uncertain environment highlights the strength of our strategy and team, making clear that the continued system capacity and bench strength investment position us strongly for the future.
Growth in underlying EBIT more than doubled over the five years, from $25 million to $55 million, which is a five-year CAGR of 17.3%. Really pleased to share some insight into our strategic positioning by brand. Universal Store continues to win in the market as the go-to destination for youth fashion. The team continues to curate the collection with premium on-trend products that customers love and trust, while ensuring we are somewhat shielded from rampant discounting in the market. That is achieved through intelligent differentiation strategies, such as delivering exceptional private brand, collaborating with great third-party suppliers to ensure that we have wanted product our customer has come to count on and value. The team's customer-first mentality goes beyond product and marketing, and our unique service model is valued by our customers.
The Universal Store footprint has capacity to grow beyond 100 stores, and we continue to refine and invest in our overall capability to meet the youth consumers' ever-changing needs. Perfect Stranger has demonstrated success in winning new customers, and the national rollout is well underway. We continue to apply our disciplined and diligent rollout strategy in order to ensure investment is well managed. Focus remains on growing brand awareness as we continue to elevate the beautiful product design and store design and deliver an excellent customer experience. This brand continues to grow from strength to strength. CTC continues to build its retail muscle for future national rollout. We have invested in enhancing the skills and capability of range curation with speed-to-market capacity, a clear difference from the wholesale cadence the original team were used to.
We have embedded new leadership in a CEO and head of product, bringing new capability into design and marketing to achieve our ambitious retail goals while we continue to stabilize the wholesale market. It is encouraging to see D2C comp gains being delivered where we continue to elevate and refine the retail offer. A callout for some of the underpinning strategies across the group to secure long-term growth through targeted investment. Firstly, customer connection, leveraging influencer marketing programs and advanced customer analytics to stay close to our customers, supported by market research across all brands. For the first time, this market research also is happening at CTC. This will continue to provide valuable insights to guide our decisions. Those insights will be available to us in November of this year. Sustainability leadership, investments delivering results with brands achieving certification under the Organic Content Standard and Global Recycled Standard.
We are very proud of our team who are working diligently to ensure that we are well placed to meet the growing reporting requirements, which kick off in FY 2027 and continue to escalate in both complexity and depth of reporting requirement year on year. Hats off to our team for their early preparation. People and capability, our new HCM system, or human capital management system, implemented in half one FY 2025, supporting talent development and workforce planning. We continue to invest in our people and HR capabilities during the year and ongoing. Retail excellence, new POS system implemented across the CTC network in quarter two FY 2025, will roll out in Perfect Stranger and Universal Store in half two FY 2026, clearly avoiding any interference with peak trade periods.
Execution discipline, strengthening our PMO skills and our PMO team with exceptional leadership in order to deliver a prioritized long-term strategic roadmap with sharper planning and more elegant execution. I'll hand over to Ethan to give a bit of a deeper dive into the financials, and Ethan will also provide us with our business updates.
Great, thanks Alice, and good morning everyone. I'll start with the group P&L. Total sales grew to $333.3 million for the year, up 15.5% on prior period. Pleasingly, all three retail banners achieved growth for the year. Universal Store sales grew 15% to $280.9 million. Perfect Stranger sales grew to $25.5 million, up 83.1% on prior period. CTC's direct-to-consumer sales grew 2.9%. This was partially offset by a decrease in the CTC wholesale channel, which was down 13.8% due to a small number of key accounts. Gross profit grew to 61.1% of sales. It was driven by the expansion of the Perfect Stranger retail format, increased Universal Store private brand sales mix, and improved inventory management, leading to a lower clearance sales mix.
Cost of doing business increased to 33.1% of sales due to three factors: the continued investment in team capability and technology to support future growth, cost inflation, and a higher FY 2025 bonus expense consistent with improved trading. Underlying EBIT of $54.6 million was up 15.9% on prior period and represents 16.4% of sales. We'll now look at the long-term sales performance trend for the group. The graph on this slide shows the six-year sales trend by business. From this, we can see the steady continual growth of Universal Store to $280.9 million. We can also see the journey Perfect Stranger has taken from going from an organic startup in FY21 to a $25.5 million business in FY25. The CTC sales in this graph exclude sales made to Universal Store, and the decrease on prior year is due to the decline in the wholesale channel.
We'll now take a further look at gross profit. The graph on the right shows the six-year trend of the group's gross profit performance. In FY 2025, we saw gross profit increase to 61.1% of sales. This represents a 100 basis point increase on prior period and is driven by four factors. First and foremost is the continued expansion of the Perfect Stranger retail format, which now represents 7.6% of total group sales compared to 4.8% in the prior period. Secondly, we saw an increase in private brand sales mix in Universal Store led by Neovision, which made up 18% of Universal Store sales for the year compared to 11% last year. The next impact was the improved inventory management by the team, which led to a lower mix of clearance sales in the period. Finally, the team continued to be very disciplined in how they approached pricing and promotions.
We'll now take a look at the cost of doing business for the year. The graph on the left shows the cost of doing business movements on prior period. From this, we can see four main impacts. Wage inflation and the investment in team resulted in a $5.6 million increase in CODB for the year. This represents 170 basis points of sales. New roles were added to support strategic projects, future growth, and digital capability. Secondly, we see the impact of like-for-like sales growth in new store openings. This represented a $9.8 million increase in cost relating to incremental wages, rent, and other vAryable costs. However, as a percent of sales, this growth fractionalized our cost of doing business by 160 basis points. Thirdly, we paid a higher bonus in FY 2025, reflecting stronger trading results and team growth. Finally, other costs represented a $2.1 million increase on prior period.
This was due to non-wage inflation, investment in technology, and customer research. During the year, we renewed 32 leases. In aggregate, the cash rental cost increase of these renewals is about 5%. We'll now move on to the group balance sheet. Looking at the balance sheet, we can see we ended the year with $17.2 million of net cash. This is up 20.3% on prior period. The group fully repaid its $15 million bank debt during the year. These loan facilities remain in place should they be required in the future. Inventory increased 11% to $33.3 million due to an increase in store numbers and investment to support customer demand. The group's right-of-use assets and lease liabilities increased 47% and 44% respectively. This increase is due to new store openings and the renewal of 32 leases during the year.
Finally, the final CTC deferred vAryable consideration payment of $800,000 will be paid in September 2025. Moving to group cash flow, the group delivered a very robust operating cash flow from operations of $98 million, which represents a 23.3% increase on prior period. This increase was driven by strong profitability and working capital management and is reflected in our EBITDA cash conversion percent of 105. FY 2025 CapEx related to 12 new store openings or relocations and investment in IT infrastructure. The $2.6 million acquisition of subsidiary payment relates to the second deferred vAryable consideration payment relating to the CTC acquisition. We'll now move on to the FY 2025 business updates, starting with the Universal Store. FY 2025 sales of $280.9 million were up 15% on prior period, driven by solid like-for-like growth of 13% in new store openings. Gross profit increased 150 basis points on prior period.
This increase was driven by strong assortments of both private and third-party brands. This effective range curation by the team supports our low discount model and disciplined pricing. Online sales grew to 5.1% on prior period. Underlying Universal Store and Perfect Stranger EBIT was $53.2 million for the year, up $11.1 million or 26.4%. During the year, we opened five new stores and closed one pop-up store, bringing our year-end network to 84 physical stores. We are planning to open four to six new stores in FY 2026 and will close one store in quarter one 2026 due to its center being under renovation, and this store will reopen in FY 2027. We're happy to say four new stores have been confirmed for quarter two FY 2026.
Four stores were relocated in FY 2025, and in the year ahead, we plan to relocate a further two to three and refurbish four stores as part of upgrading our fleet. Jumping into Perfect Stranger, sales grew to $25.5 million, up 83.1% on prior period. This was driven by like-for-like growth of 25.5%, new store openings, and robust online growth. Perfect Stranger continues to attract new customers to the group with little noticeable cannibalization of nearby Universal Store stores. We continue to focus on building brand awareness and network expansion. To support this expansion, we continue to prudently invest in dedicated resourcing to support Perfect Stranger's growth. Five new stores were opened during the year, bringing our network to 19 stores. We are planning to open five to seven stores in FY 2026, with three stores already confirmed for opening this year.
Finally, moving on to CTC, wholesale sales were down 13.8% for the year due to a decrease in a small number of key retail accounts of the THRILLS brand. The impacts of these three key accounts are largely cycled in FY 2025. As Alice mentioned, the impact of U.S.A. tariffs resulted in us scaling back sales to that geography. Pleasingly, the Worship brand continues to grow, achieving 10.5% growth in the wholesale channel for the year. Combined THRILLS and Worship sales to Universal Store were $13.2 million in FY 2025, down from $14 million in FY 2024 due to lower THRILLS sales. However, collectively, THRILLS and Worship make up 10% of total Universal Store sales. FY 2025 gross profit of 42.9% was down 330 basis points on prior period. This decrease was due to product sales mix and aged inventory markdown activity. Underlying EBIT for CTC was $1.5 million for the year.
Two new stores were opened and two legacy stores were closed in FY 2025. As a result, the network remains at eight physical stores. We are planning to open two to four stores in FY 2026, with one store opened earlier this week. From a strategic point of view, the focus continues to be on growing the direct-to-consumer channel and stabilizing the wholesale channel. To this end, we onboarded a new CEO and new head of p roduct to drive the product development and retail execution. This includes leveraging the THRILLS Byron Bay heritage, passion for music, art, and a vintage look. I'll now pass back to Alice for a trading update.
This slide everyone comes for, right? Look, it's been a promising start to the half, and these last seven weeks are a clear reflection of the strength of our brands and the energy of our team. Group FY 2026 to date, the first seven weeks of the financial year, direct-to-consumer sales up 17.2% on pcp, broken down by brand. Universal Store up 14.7%, and that is a 12.5% like-for-like growth. Perfect Stranger up 52.8% and a 19.3% like-for-like growth. CTC direct-to-consumer sales up 12.9%, which is a 4% like-for-like growth. We expect CTC wholesale to remain challenging for FY 2026, and I should call out that CTC wholesale represents less than 5% of group sales net of intercompany eliminations. Gross profit, we remain committed to our customers' needs as we balance the mix of both third-party and private label. We continue to monitor our foreign currency risk.
Due to cost of doing business, the group continues to invest in team capability and depth to support future growth and succession planning. New POS implementation plan for half two FY 2026 continues, and management remains focused on balancing wage optimization with customer service and team safety. We have had a strong kickoff for the new financial year and have solid strategic initiatives embedded to help us drive momentum. I want to recognize our incredible team members across the entire group and every business function for their passion, resilience, focus, and teamwork, because ultimately a winning culture is what drives our results. We are looking forward to the Christmas trade period and the rest of the half with focus and enthusiasm.
We know that we face into much tougher comps this peak season than last, and the challenge is set for us to continue to achieve like-for-like sales growth in the toughest and the most exciting months of the year. If you don't like Christmas, don't work in fashion retail. I want to thank the board for their continued guidance and support and belief in our long-term vision. To our shareholders, we are grateful to you for your continued confidence in us. We remain committed to making you proud of your decision to back our business. Thank you very much, Sam, and we'll be very happy to open for questions.
Great, thanks very much, Ethan and Alice. As a reminder, you may ask questions via raising your hand via the Q&A function, or you can submit written questions at the bottom of your screen. A couple of quick questions to kick off on like-for-likes. Some really impressive growth there. Can you just elaborate and provide a little bit more context, including expectations looking forward, as well as the compArysons that you look to cycle as the year progresses?
We definitely have tougher comps to face into. I suppose it is about stabilizing everyone's expectations. It has been a very strong kickoff, but we definitely know we're leaning into tougher trade. Anything you want to add?
No, I agree. I'll also just add the fact that seven weeks is always a small sample size. We're very pleased with the start of the year, but we note that July and August tend to be our relatively quieter months.
Yeah, true.
Great, thank you. Just on costs, the cost of doing business continues to rise, which you signaled throughout the year. How should we think about costs moving forward? Is this investment and team composition complete heading into FY 2022?
I think it's important to remind everyone how lean we have been as an organization and the growing governance requirements, the growing reporting requirements that exist. As we continue to grow and flex, there are more safety requirements. There's a lot more for us to do. In order to ensure that the investments that we've made have been solid, succession planning, part of my change to my role into a more strategic role has really highlighted how we could be better at retention and attraction strategies. We've just hired a brand new general manager of human resources. We're also adding, for the first time ever, a new role, which is a loss prevention manager. A lot of retailers take that for granted. Our high service model in store has helped us not need that department in the past.
With youth crime growing and knife crime growing and retail crime lifting, how do we maintain protecting our assets and our team? There are different ways of thinking that we need to do in order to protect the investments. I'm really comfortable with our percentage. I think we're doing a great job. Hopefully, people will appreciate that these investments are carefully, diligently considered and not a least bit wasteful.
Okay, great, thank you. We'll just shift across to some live questions. Chami at Bell Potter, please unmute your line and go ahead.
Yeah, thanks, Sam. Morning, Alice and Ethan. Well done again, and thanks for taking my questions. I think two from me. To start off with, as you said, the slide that everyone likes on the comps. Would you say that the first quarter, I mean, the start of the first quarter so far of the new year is more consistent with the fourth quarter comps or slightly better than that last bit of the second half?
Yeah, I think we're seeing fairly consistent sales momentum. I'd say they're fairly consistent with the quarter four of FY 2025.
Thank you for that. Anything to call out in the THRILLS? I know it's a small, I mean, relatively smaller than sort of the really good comps that you have printed, but just in the THRILLS retail in the second half, anything to call out here?
I think we're just growing our retail muscle. We're continuing to refine product. We're continuing. We just opened a brand new store yesterday in Miranda. Those of you who are Sydney-based, we encourage you to go and have a visit. We're just continuing to do a much better job. I'm really comfortable with the cadence that the team is now taking, the speed with which they are enthusiastically embracing the change to product design delivery cadence. It's been a big change for the team. The new stores that we've opened have definitely outperformed the older stores that were ill-considered and poorly placed. We've still got a lot of work to do.
Perfect, thanks Alice. Just switching to the new stores, it's good to see the FY 2026 starting point for the dark target. In terms of the 100 stores for Universal Store, how does timing, how do you all consider timing of that? Also, now with the two younger brands, what's the landlord opportunity looking like?
Yeah, we've always said 100+ stores for Universal Store. You know, the better technology we get to, the more heat mapping we can do and understand where our online purchases are coming from, that gives us more confidence to spread out into some centers that we mightn't have originally considered were ideal for us. That's been proving useful. Landlords aren't growing at the moment. One of the only things they have to leverage their growth is charge more rent. Unfortunately, we come out with great results. They think that there's more opportunity for them. As we go to them in more of a packaged view that we have three brands that we could open, we're working our best. We will not open sites that we don't believe in. We won't open sites that are the wrong location in the center, the wrong size.
Certainly, if the commercials don't stack up, Ethan will hit me in the ribs and know why are we going there.
Thank you very much, Alice and Ethan. I'll go back to the queue. Thanks, Sam.
Great, thanks Chami. Sam at Petra, please go ahead.
Morning, Alice and Ethan. Congrats on the result. Just on the gross, just going back to gross margin and cost of doing business trajectory, it seems the theme is that you've gotten, you're getting an underlying accretion in gross margin and you're reinvesting some of that to cost of doing business in a measured way. Should we expect that similar theme in 2026? Just more color in terms of, or is there an opportunity for cost of doing business as percentage of sales to start to stabilize?
Yeah, I think if you look at maybe two cost of doing business first. In FY 2025, we referred to some vacancies being filled, primAryly in the merchandise and marketing areas that were hung over from FY 2024. Those, that will, that's now been done. That will start to stabilize. We continue to incrementally add resource where needed. Alice gave two good examples of our GM of HR and head of loss prevention. Also, with Perfect Stranger, as that business continues to grow, we need more dedicated resourcing and not shared resourcing with the Universal Store. We're still expecting CODB investment, but the rate of investment year on year will start to subside.
Right, so you're still expecting an increasing percentage of sales, but not as material.
Yeah, that's fair to say. From a gross profit point of view, we're always led by the customer. We're very aware of the importance of third-party brands to the success of our business, and we don't set the team targets on private brand mix. First and foremost, we have great brands and we want to continue to grow those brands, but we'll always be customer-led. Hence why we don't give specific guidance on gross margin going forward.
On the data analytics and AI, is that featuring in your business in terms of AI capabilities? Is that an opportunity that's sort of untapped at this point? Thinking about personalization and optimizing price points and things like that.
I think it's fair to say we're early in the journey. I think a lot of the work the team are doing is more from a search and how we help customers digitally find the products they want. I don't want to misrepresent that we're far down the path on AI, but it's something we've started with more in the customer-facing part of the business.
I was just going to ask quickly on offshore plans. You're doing some work there. That's my last question. Any update there?
Offshore in terms of retail?
Yeah, taking some of your private brands offshore. I think you're looking at that opportunity.
We've not really been terribly enthusiastic. The world seems a little bit unusual at the moment. I think we've channeled more energy into how do we grow our footprint in Australia. We've got some great momentum going. It's in the background, Sam, but right now the world is a little bit volatile, I think.
Great, thanks for your help.
Thanks, Sam. Ary at Barrenjoey , please go ahead.
Hey, Ary.
Hey, Ary, are you there?
Hi, that's me.
Yeah, got you.
Just to put the context, am I right in saying that this time last year?
I might need you to speak up a little, Ary. I'm not sure we're getting you.
Sorry, can you hear me now?
Yes, thank you.
Yeah, sorry. Is it fair to say, like, if I look at your comps just optically in July or August last year, the cycling 13% like sales and the rest of the half, so September to December, comps sit at 16%? Is that what you guys are referring to around the comps getting tougher, like the three percentage point?
I think maybe I should paraphrase your question. You were saying, I think you're coming on FY 2024, we had relatively softer comps that we cycled in 2025. Therefore, does that kind of guide our FY 2026 guidance? I think the answer is yes. I think our overall sales momentum, you know, sales per store per week, we've seen pretty good consistency. As Alice mentioned, we're really aware that heading into our big trading period, we are cycling strong growth from last year.
Right, thanks. Just on the gross margin, the second half of 2025, gross margin for the business was at 61.7%. Appreciate if you've got a private label swinging around for almost April. Is there anything to stop us from viewing that as the hop-up point for FY 2026? Is there seasonality, half to half in gross margin that we should be aware of or anything like that? Can you talk through FX as well, like based on your view, how much of a drag is FX at $0.65 a day?
Yeah, sure. Product mix, we saw a favorable shift of product mix to tops and out of wear in FY 2025, which helps gross margin from a mix point of view. You'd see that being a step up, but you're not going to get another step up on that. It's more of trying to hold that. Universal Perfect Stranger growth will continue to be accretive to margin as that network, as that part of the business grows. From an FX point of view, if we assume a 64% spot rate for FY 2026, we get about a 43 basis point drag on JP. Of course, our job is to manage that through pricing and the like. That would be a call out, I'd say, from a margin point of view, Ary. Like I said, the biggest wildcard job is private brand mix, what the customer wants, right?
If the customer really wants a new product that we don't range and we partner with a third-party provider, then that's going to obviously do the right thing for the customer, but that's also going to impact margin one way or the other.
Great, thanks, Ary. We'll just move across to Sam at Citi group. Sam, please go ahead.
You might be on mute, Sam.
Sam Teeger, can you please unmute your line and ask your question?
Thank you. Hey, Alice, hey, Ethan, well done on yet another very strong result. Just one more on the margins. Is there any opportunity to reduce promotions even further, or do you think in FY 2025 you pulled promotions back as far as you can?
It's pretty tight now. We don't have a lot of discounting happening. We just had after payday, and it was not a blanket discount. We targeted product that will get marked down anyway or that we had a bit of buffer in. I think we're pretty tight on promotion.
Yeah, I'd say a big congrats to the team. The way that the team managed inventory this year is fantastic. I think they've set a really high bar.
What we've also found is there's some third-party product out there that's really wanted, and it's a higher price point, and the kids are buying it. We haven't had to mark that down. It's not going to have the same gross margin as some of our private label, but it's bringing them in the door. It's absolutely driving top line sales. If we buy correctly and we get the quantities right, we don't end up with a markdown issue. I'm with you. Hats off to the team for doing a great job.
Right, thanks. On the rollout guidance, if you can just step through each of the three banners, how much will be first half versus second half?
Yeah, for Universal Store, we have four stores opening in quarter two, skewed a bit more to the second part of quarter two, kind of late October, early November. Perfect Stranger, we have the three stores: quarter one, quarter two, and quarter four at the moment are the confirmed dates. We continue, and in CTC THRILLS, we've opened one store earlier this week, two days ago, in fact. From a rollout point of view, we continue to look at other opportunities. As Alice mentioned, it's that right balance of right location, right commercials, long-term viability. That's one thing that we don't compromise on. I think we're confident with the guidance we've given, but we'll continue to be diligent.
To what extent does getting suitable staff impact how fast you can open stores?
To the right deals?
Absolutely a brilliant question, and I'm so pleased you asked it because one of the things, particularly at Universal Store, we've got a huge turn of product and we've got a high service model. Hiring talent from external sources is very, very difficult. People either come from high volume, which is stack it high, watch it fly, but very low service, or they come from boutique, which has got great service, but they get overwhelmed by the amount of product that we're pushing through their doors. Homegrowing our team was something that we used to do pre-COVID and we've absolutely gone back to. We've got an amazing operations team, brilliant head of ops and head of store ops.
We're really going back to that disciplined training program, bringing in area managers and training that are high potentials and looking for other high potentials within our business for growth because that's how you get the best talent, Sam. You don't get it from across the hole.
Great, thank you, Sam. Next question comes from Wei -Weng at RBC. Wei -Weng, please unmute your line and go ahead.
Hey, thanks. I wanted to go back to the attraction retention as kind of a follow-up on the flip side. I guess your strong performance in a pretty challenging retail backdrop has made you guys potentially, has that made you a target from competitors poaching staff to potentially reverse engineer some of that secret sauce that you guys have?
All the time, all the time. This is nothing new. That's not something that's just been happening, but you better believe it. It's almost a badge of, like, we're kind of, should we have a little, little chit board where people go, oh, cold again today. It's been happening for a long time. That's why if you don't build a decent culture and people can't see growth opportunities for themselves, you will lose talent. We've promoted a number of team members this past year into more senior roles. We've had some title changes. We've had some scope changes as we've invested in our team because we want to keep our talent. That's another great question.
Yeah, cool. What's your sense in the strength of the consumer when you look at them sort of from 2025 versus 2024, as in FY 2025 versus 2024? Maybe your thoughts on FY 2026 and how that kind of might improve or potentially get worse or be the same as 2025?
I mean, my sense is that we've seen a stabilization over time. Very few of our consumers are in the mortgage belt. For them, it's about rent and cost of living in general. Certainly, wanted product, and this is something that we've learned, if you've got great product that demonstrates value for money, and I don't mean cheap, I mean, if it feels like it's worth $100 and you're asking $90, or it feels like it's worth $150 and you're asking $120, they find the money because it's so important to the youth consumer that they've got the brands that make them feel proud, they've got the products that look great on them, and that they are, you know, fitting in and standing out at the same time. We've really seen a stabilization from the shock and awe of a couple of years ago. We're not seeing that change.
Great, thank you, Wei. I think that's all the time we have for questions today. If there are any follow-ups, please feel free to email them through to either myself or Ethan, and we'll endeavor to come back to you. Maybe with that, Alice, I'll just pass it back to you for any closing comments.
Thank you all very much. We are heading off on our roadshow Sunday night. We fly out to Sydney, so we'll be seeing lots of you for a couple of days in Sydney, and then we'll be in Melbourne after that. George will be joining us, which will be great. We'll have George in tow. I'll probably sit there and not do much, which will be great. Thank you all very much.
Great, thank you very much for joining today's Universal Store FY 2025 Results Call. Thank you and goodbye. Have a great day.
Thanks.