Looking at last year’s performance, it said that the year to the end of March saw revenue of £42.5 million, with profit before tax of at least £1.6 million – a big and positive swing from a loss of £0.6 million in the previous year.

Every product category saw growth, with knitwear, formal tailoring, coats and partywear performing “exceptionally well throughout the winter season”. The launch of new categories, such as summer occasionwear and swim and beachwear, “have had a positive start and are expected to be some of the fastest growing areas for the group in H1”.

Last year, this all helped it push the gross margin up very slightly to 56.1% from 56%, despite revenue growth coming through the lower-margin wholesale channel. 

And it reported a number of other strongly positive figures such as the number of orders increasing 22% to almost 621,000 with over 148,000 of these coming from brand-new customers. The conversion rate also increase to 4.1% from 3.9%, and average order value rose 8% to £97.27. 

Its performance with third-party partners remained strong, and it saw a successful launch with Sainsbury

The company continues to invest in growing the business, including investment in technology, its international strategy, and hiring key personnel. And in fact, some investments that had been planned for the current financial year were brought forward.

And following a successful fundraising, it has net cash available to it of £10.5 million. 

LONG GROWTH RUNWAY

The company has grown in the course of its six-year history from one that turned over £1.3 million in year one to that £42.5 million figure in the latest period. And while explosive growth is usually harder to come by as companies mature, Sosandar still appears to have a long growth runway ahead of it.

The company doesn’t appear to have been affected by the well-publicised downturn so far this year either. It said it had seen a record Q3 and that January and February trading was in line with expectations. And as SS23 product started to arrive throughout March, it also saw “increased demand” with the month’s sales up 32% year-on-year.

With a new e-commerce director, commercial international director and head of operations in place, it said it’s entering “its next phase of development”.

That next phase will include enhancements to the way, it sells its products to consumers, including a mobile app that should launch in Q2 and more personalisation and segmentation tools for Sosandar.com. 

Both of these developments “will further underpin customer acquisition, retention, order frequency and average order value, as well as build the infrastructure to take advantage of international opportunities,” it said.