Sosandar powers ahead, adds new third-party deals

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Apr 6, 2022

Womenswear e-tailer Sosandar has announced another record year with the 12 months that ended in March seeing revenue up 138% year-on-year and every month during the second half being EBITDA-positive. The new year has started strongly too.

And the strong performance is expected to continue with the company on Wednesday also announcing further third-party partnerships following previous success with such link-ups.

It has extended its relationship with Next and Sosandar products are to be sold through its Platform Plus. In addition, “following an approach by The Very Group, Sosandar is pleased to have commenced a wholesale agreement from March”.

The Platform Plus deal allows Next customers to order items picked from Sosandar's own warehouse, which are then delivered via Next's distribution network. 

The company said “this agreement builds on the success of Sosandar's existing relationship with Next, which has gone from strength to strength since it was established 18 months ago”. Sosandar will launch its new activity with Next Platform Plus during the current quarter.

And it has already started its wholesale agreement with The Very Group, “with strong sales and quick repeat orders being placed”. It said that selling Sosandar products through Very.co.uk “will further increase the brand's reach amongst its core target demographic and deliver incremental revenue and EBITDA”.

As for that explosive growth it saw in the latest year, it said that following its record performance in Q3, it delivered its second consecutive EBITDA-positive quarter in Q4 “with very strong trading across all channels”. 

As a result, it now anticipates reporting revenue and EBITDA for the full year ended 31 March 2022 ahead of recently upgraded market expectations. Revenue should be £29 million, up 138% as previously mentioned. 

The FY22 EBITDA loss will be reduced by over 80% from a loss of £2.92 million in FY21.

It added that the number of orders increased 84% to 508,473 in the year; repeat orders increased 93% to 366,848; the conversion rate increased to 3.9% from 3.1%; average order frequency increased by 10% to 2.28 times a year; and average order value of £90.39 was up 9% from £82.70 in the prior year.

This all helped the gross margin rise to 56.% from 48% in the Covid-impacted prior year.

The company said that its strategy to accelerate sales growth on Sosandar.com and through concession partners “has been executed to plan with a very strong sales response as a result of the company's dynamic design and product development process as well as the greater depth and breadth of stock made available across all product categories”. 

It has “become a key strategic partner of its three major third-party retailers, M&S, Next & John Lewis, with significant opportunities for further growth”.

Importantly too, Q3’s strong sales of the AW21 range, including partywear, “has been followed by an earlier than normal take-up of spring and holiday ranges in Q4”.