White Stuff powers ahead as all channels outperform

Lifestyle brand White Stuff said on Saturday that its “ongoing business transformation continues to deliver strong growth” with its results for the year to late April showing sales and profit rising strongly. 

And CEO Jo Jenkins added that trading has been “good” so far in the current financial year as well, including on its new web platform.

For the 52 weeks to 29 April, it reported total sales up 13.3% year on year to £151.4 million. And profit on an EBITDA basis leapt to £7 million from £2.9 million, when adjusted for non-recurring items such as Covid-related grants and business rates relief.

Meanwhile retail sales surged 18.1% to £73.9 million, “driven by customers returning to all shop types including city centres, shopping malls, market towns and resorts”.

But online sales were also up a healthy 7.3% at £65.8 million. This percentage is particularly encouraging given how many retailers saw their e-sales falling in that period as their customers switched back to buying in-person post-pandemic.

The company said it was helped by it seeing “significant” online growth continuing from third-party partners, including M&S, Next and John Lewis.

Wholesale (both at home and abroad) was also impressive with a 20.6% jump to reach £11.7 million.

And its international business (from wholesale, online, standalone retail and concessions) saw an even bigger rise with a 21.7% increase to £13.5 million. 

Clearly the company — which says it’s “currently the UK’s biggest retailer of Fairtrade Sourced Cotton” — is firing on all cylinders with all of its channels pulling their weight. It said this reflects “the continued success of the business at the early stages of its transformation programme”. 

The earnings report added that the 12-month period was a record one for customer recruitment, with 317,000 new customers acquired (up 25% year on year). 

And key categories did particularly well with dresses rising 43% and menswear up 28%. Customers also “bought more of White Stuff’s elevated basics than ever before – with 1.4million of its ‘favourites’ sold in the year”.

The almost-40-year old business has 123 shops and 54 concessions in the UK, as well as concessions in Germany and Belgium. It sells internationally via its website and has 575 wholesale stockists, 165 of them in the UK and Ireland and 410 in other countries.