Oliver Sweeney gets menswear boost, has international ambitions

Men’s footwear brand Oliver Sweeney released its results for the year to the end of April on Monday and said its move into men’s clothing “has powered a near 20% growth in revenues” and the firm is setting its sites on international expansion.

Its turnover rose 18.5% to £9.06 million and the group saw operating profit (EBITDA) up 16% to £654,000. Meanwhile pre-tax profit rose 25% to £583,000.

As mentioned, that expansion into clothing appears to have paid off with sales in this category up 52.3%.

But all areas of the business grew – with the company attracting nearly 22,000 new customers, and increasing orders from existing customers by nearly 40%.

CEO Tim Cooper, who’s led a turnaround at the business, said the addition of menswear “has proven highly complementary to our well established market position as a high-quality, stylish footwear brand. Our range appeals to men who are fashion conscious, but want to purchase items that will be part of their wardrobes for many years.”

The brand had been hit hard during the pandemic with the well-publicised downturn in shoe sales and the general move away from formality into comfort clothing clearly an issue for a label whose offer includes a large number of traditional shoes.

The downturn saw it going into administration and all five of its own retail outlets being closed with the reborn Oliver Sweeney now selling either online or in department stores, including John Lewis and House of Fraser.

Importantly, it stressed that it now uses “sophisticated analytics to target its marketing and is very strict on customer acquisition, ensuring every customer is profitable from first purchase”.

Cooper added: “Now that we have established our growth methodology and our clothing offer, we can target international expansion. This is a very exciting time for the business and we are extremely confident about profitably growing in the future.”