Sosandar Plc

hello everyone so just to take you through the agenda for today firstly we're going to take you through an overview then stevie's going to talk about the financial and kpi review julie and i will go through product followed by some more detail on third parties then we'll touch on marketing followed by esg and lastly the outlook for susanda so just to give you an overview of the susanda story so far so the success of susanda was spotting the opportunity for an e-commerce brand for women who had graduated from fast fashion What they were looking for was a trend-led brand. We design all our clothes in-house, looking for high quality, good fit and lifestyle appropriate. So our customers tend to be in the 35 plus age bracket. She was also looking for a mid price point. So on average, a dress at Susanda would be about £69. So in simple terms, before Susanda, our customer was either faced with brands that were too young for her or brands that were too safe and not fashionable enough. So what we gave her was a unique aesthetic, a chic and sexy look, both in terms of the style of the product we produce and everything we do marketing wise. So all the imagery and the aesthetic behind the lifestyle we sell. So we launched in September 2016 with 74 styles. That has increased 30 fold and we now have a product range of 2000 styles on the site. As you can see on the chart, we've gone from startup to 12 million turnover in four years. And the success of the brand and unique brand positioning has been recognized by many third parties who all approached us. And the ones we chose to work with so far are Next, M&S and John Lewis.

So just to give you some highlights from the full year, and then I'll give highlights of current trading. And we're going to go into more detail in all these areas later on in the presentation. So revenue for the year is 12.2 million, which grew 35% on the prior year. And the really key part is that we saw a 62% improvement in our EBITDA loss. We maintained our cash balance incredibly well, finishing the year at 3.93 million with very minimal cash burn throughout the previous year. And that's really been partly due to scale and also the maximizing of return on investment from customer acquisition. we really accelerated the expansion of the product range to really adapt to customers changing needs and we recruited more customers last year than we did the prior year but on half the marketing spend so we'll come on to talk about how we did that later on we're also seeing once we recruit those customers customers are incredibly sticky so we're seeing ever increasing number of repeat customers And we're also seeing those customers order more frequently. And as Ali said, we have launched very successfully with John Lewis, Next and Marks and Spencers with those orders being profitable from day one. And highlights of current trading. So the new financial year began in April. So for the first quarter of the new financial year, we've had a really great start. It's been a record quarter. Each month has increased sequentially, ending with a record in the month of June. So total revenue for the quarter is 5.7 million, which is up 256% versus the prior year. Obviously worth pointing out that, of course, we were in heavy lockdown at this point last year. importantly we're also up significantly on where we ended the prior financial year so versus q4 this first quarter the new financial year is up 45 we've seen a really strong increase in active customers increasing by 23 in three months alone and we've seen the fastest sell-through of new stock that we've ever seen and the third parties just continue to go from strength to strength And the EBITDA improvement also continues and we can see a very clear path to profitability.

Moving on to the financial and KPI review in more detail. Starting with a P&L overview, which just shows the 62% reduction in EBITDA losses to 2.9 million in the year ending March, driven by the 35% increase in revenue to 12.2 million. Gross profit percentage in the year was 48%, which maintained broadly stable against the prior year. And that was despite a slightly higher impact of promotional activity during the year in order to ensure sell through a product through the pandemic. Quarter one, the gross profit margin for the new financial year was 56%, showing a step up as the restrictions started to lift. We also saw a substantial reduction in admin expenses by 26% within the year. predominantly driven by marketing and economies of scale as the focus on return on investment and cash preservation and management took hold through the year. In terms of balance sheet, as Julie mentioned, a really strong cash position at the end of the year of 3.9 million, held broadly stable since nine months previous where we had 4.4 in July, a really strong position. The other thing to note on the balance sheet is that of inventory, which was reduced significantly by a million to 2.9 million. And that's despite increasing the range of product that we now stock, as well as onboarding the third parties during the year. Our balance sheet was further strengthened in May of this year, following a fundraise where we raised 5.4 million net. And that raise is designed to accelerate our growth beyond where we're already heading, particularly with our third parties, by increasing our stock holding from autumn-winter of 21 to ensure that we increase the amount of breadth of range that's stocked on our third parties, so the number of styles, but also the depth of each style, so the quantity against each style, so that we can really maximise the opportunity that's being created by our relationships. At the end of June, we were holding cash of 9.1 million inclusive of the raise, which again is minimal operational cash usage in that period. Moving on to some of our broader KPIs, starting with the total number of orders. And what we're looking at here is how our orders have changed over the last two year period. Last year, the total orders that we generated grew by 29% year on year. As we entered the autumn, so September 20, we returned to customer acquisition, and you can see the number of orders growing from that period onwards. It's that customer acquisition that has also enabled us to grow in the first quarter of this current financial year, with total orders tripling against the same period 12 months previous. And in this first quarter of the new year, our total orders are 40% up when compared with the previous final quarter of the last financial year. And that's driven both by new orders as well as those that are from repeat customers. And looking at our existing database, our active customers and how engaged they are, this chart shows us how engaged and the average order frequency that we're generating from our active customers. So today, based on quarter one, 42% of our active customers are now purchasing from us more than once per annum. And that's up 26% on the previous year. In addition, as Julie mentioned, we've increased the number of active customers in the last three months alone by 23 percent and now have 167,000 customers buying from us in the last 12 months alone. In addition, on average, each customer is now buying from us 2.2 times per annum. And if we look at only the cohort of customers that purchased from us more than once in the last 12 months, that's now nearly four times per annum, which is up from three times only 12 months previously. In terms of our conversion, which we've seen a really significant increase over the last six or nine months. So our conversion stepped up significantly in the second half of last year. And again, in the first quarter of the new financial year, we're now tracking at around 3.7 percent conversion. This has been driven by the expansion in our product range and also the refinement of our marketing mix and our strategy, which we'll talk about later in the presentation. With regards to average order value, that stepped up again in quarter one, following the dip that we saw last year as the maturity of the product mix took hold. It stepped up in Q1 to £86 as we started to see the product mix normalise as dresses, both woven and jersey, took a slightly larger proportion of the overall mix. In terms of our admin expenses, on the left hand side, we can see the absolute spend of our costs. But on the right hand side, which is what I wanted to focus on, you can see those costs as a percentage of our revenue, which, as we entered last financial year, dropped significantly. In the first half, as we stopped customer acquisition, as we got to grips with the pandemic, but much more significantly, as we started to acquire more customers and invest in marketing again in the second half of last year and continuing into the first quarter of the new financial year, Our cost as a percentage of revenue dropped significantly in the first half of the last financial year as we focused on preserving cash and stocked customer acquisition for that period of time. As we entered the second half of the last financial year, we recommenced with our activities, but importantly, our cost as a percentage of our revenue have continued to stabilise and actually fall as we've entered into the first quarter of the new financial year. showing quite clearly the economies of scale that we're now generating, along with the ROI improvement from marketing, which really shows the clear path that we now have to profitability.

okay we're going to come on to talk more about the expansion of our product so the pie chart on the left shows the revenue by category for the full year of 2021 so we've expanded the product range significantly over the last year and this has really given increased customer choice and also has enabled us to fulfill far more wardrobe needs the mix is very well balanced across a number of different product categories and what this enables us to do is very quickly adapt to consumer demand and it gives us an ability to dial up and dial down categories very quickly so when we were in deep lockdown in january february we were able to dial up the loungewear leisurewear and activewear and then as restrictions have started to lift we've been able to really dial up um dresses once again so if you look at the bar chart on the right hand side What that shows is the change in category share for Q1 this year versus Q4. So you can see what's happened here is we've got big increases in share in woven dresses and jersey dresses as people have started to go out more and a decline in share in things like loungewear and leisurewear. I think important to point out is that all categories are showing growth year on year. All this is is a changing mix of what people are actually buying. Also important to say is that we've barely scratched the surface in many of these product categories. We've currently got about 2000 styles on sale on site, but there is a huge opportunity to still keep expanding into all of these categories and also to launch into new categories.

So we've talked about our ever expanding product range and the fantastic growth in both new and core categories. You can see here on this slide, some of our current best sellers, all of which are really colorful as what we're seeing as customer optimism with restrictions being lifted. It's been reflected in an increase of colorful purchases. You can also see, most importantly, that as a brand, Susanda is not reliant on any one type of product. We've great sales across all categories. When we launched as a brand, we were much more reliant on woven dresses and workwear. But here you can see bestsellers across jersey and woven dresses and tops. knitwear denim elsewhere and occasion so i think the main thing here is that whatever situation our customer is in whether she continues to work at home whether she goes back to the office whether she's going out or god forbid there's another lockdown and she has to stay in we're covered as we have such a diverse mix as a brand which is a great place for us to be

Moving on to our third party partnerships and starting with a brief overview of how the operations work for us at Susanda. So we refer to it as the concession model. We are online only with each of Next, John List and Marks and Spencers. The stock is held in the partner's warehouse. So we move stock to them and they then fulfill orders directly to their consumer once orders have been placed. Our revenue isn't diluted and neither is our gross profit percentage. So when we're presenting numbers today and in future R&Ss, all of our data is the same. So, for example, a £69 dress on our own site and on their site, we would report the £69 as our revenue. And also our GP percentage remains undiluted. What we do have, though, is a commission that is paid to the partner and that is shown within admin expenses. And that commission covers us for all costs, which of the operations that are borne by the partner. So they are responsible for the fulfillment, the returns handling, the marketing, the transactional costs and so on. We don't have any incremental or additional cost other than the commission. As a consequence of the way the operation works, it is profitable from day one for us. And one of the learnings that we've certainly seen since we commenced trading with these retail partners is that there really is a direct correlation between the amount of stock that we allocate to them and the revenue that they generate. And we can see that really nicely on this chart. So the gold bars are the revenue that we've generated with the third parties since we commenced trading. And the grey line is the number of units that we've moved to the three partners. And you can see quite clearly that relationship. So as the number of units has started to grow, so has the revenue. And as we start to invest the funds that we raised in May, we would expect that this chart would continue to grow substantially.

So there's a huge opportunity to grow in Autumn Winter 21 with all three of our third parties. We're going to be delivering a greater depth of stock, both in terms of the number of styles, but also the depth of each style for all three of our partners. So we're pretty much looking at doubling the amount of stock for Autumn Winter. As on our own site, the product is resonating with their customers across all categories and selling out really quickly on key styles. And just to remind you of the benefits of these partnerships, we get an incremental revenue growth, further improvement in EBITDA, an increase in brand awareness and also margin benefits from increasing the order quantities that we have with our suppliers.

Right, come on now to talk a little bit more about our marketing strategy. So we have a unique marketing strategy that we've honed and refined over a number of years to recruit the best quality customers where we see really high repeat levels of ordering from them. So we broadly split our marketing budget three ways and that's split fairly evenly between TV, glossy brochures and social media, which is Facebook and Instagram. So to talk about TV, first of all, we use TV to drive high volumes of traffic to the site. We run TV like it's a digital campaign in that we monitor and assess every single slot. And over time, we've really been able to refine the programs, the slots, the times, the channels. And this is where we've seen this huge reduction in the cost of acquisition because we're driving huge volumes of people at less cost than we did initially when we first started trialing TV. And that's obviously based on all the data learnings that we've had and we're being able to apply those. So to give you an example of the kind of spikes that we see from TV, the graph there on the left hand side shows a day when we've had three slots air on TV. And what you can see is how the traffic coming to the site spikes significantly at the moment that the TV ad airs. So that traffic comes to site and then we convert those people using email and brochure. So we get huge signups to the database from that traffic that we generate from TV. I'll talk about email in a moment, but to talk about brochures first of all. So what brochures do is they create really high conversion rates. So glossy brochures land on customers and prospects' maps. So the graph in the middle, below the brochure image, what that shows in the dark solid line is the conversion rate when the brochure lands versus in the dotted blue line, the conversion rate on the same day, the prior week. So what you can see at around 11 o'clock when the postman arrives, a massive increase in conversion rate. And so you can see conversion rates up to 10%, which I mean is virtually unheard of in the world of e-commerce. So they work incredibly well to convert people to purchase. And then we use social media in order to drive really deep engagement with our customers and to keep reminding them of Susanda, retargeting them, bringing them back to site. And we get thousands of engagements every day, people sharing, liking, clicking through to the site and so on. And then to talk a little more about email. Email is very much the lifeblood of our business and our database is incredibly important. We'll talk more about the database in a second. So we send at least seven emails a week. which is on top of things like back in stock emails and so on and abandoned basket emails so these are the campaign emails that we send every day the way we run this is like as if we were running a news desk so it's a combination of really careful skilled planning but then quick reaction so we have our finger on the pulse all the time of what is happening whether it be with the weather stock landing what people are buying and what the news might be so we're really getting into the hearts and minds of how our customers are thinking and feeling so what happens from this is we get very high open and conversion rates and also very high revenue from email which i'll talk more about in a second

So just talk about our celebrity strategy. We've had brilliant celebrity endorsement from day one of launching the business from mainstream high profile celebrity actors, presenters, dancers, singers. Unlike a lot of brands, we don't pay celebrities to wear our clothes. The celebrities wear our clothes as they like them. This further proves the gap in the market, as obviously celebrities have more difficulty finding clothes than the non-celebrity women in our market, as these women have more occasions and appearances to dress for. The great thing is that when a celebrity wears our clothes, it's like the icing on the cake of our marketing strategy, but we're not reliant on it. So we're not reliant on a celeb or influencer's popularity to sell our clothes. The product sells as we're producing products women in our market want and need and until Susanda they weren't able to find.

Now we'll look more closely at the database and how that has grown over the last two years. So the grey bars here are the monthly new signups to the email database and then the yellow line is the overall size of that database. The database is quadrupled in two years, so from 100,000 to just over 400,000 people on the database. So that's made up of customers, prospects, people who've signed up and not yet bought. So what you can see here, the big spikes here are directly related to when we're investing in customer acquisition, so TV in particular. So to go back to the earlier slide when I talked about TV driving huge volumes of traffic, you can see that manifested here in the number of signups that spike when we're on TV. Email is now the largest revenue generator for us, generating 42% of our overall revenue comes from our emails. And so this is just people who directly link through from reading that email and then directly link through and go on to buy. The true number of revenue that we're generating from our database is much higher than this because we also generate revenue from people who might see an email and then go and search for Susanda or come directly come direct to the site. The critical thing with this is once we've got people on the database, we're generating this revenue without having to spend any additional marketing money on generating that money. So all our budget for marketing can be allocated to customer acquisition and keep filling that database pot all the time. And then the next slide looks at the acquisition of new customers. So it's similar bar charts, but this time it's new customers who purchased with us for the first time. that's the yellow bars and then the grey line is the cost of acquisition so you see a very similar pattern where you get spikes in new customers where we are investing in marketing the important thing to note here is that reduction in the cost of acquisition So if we go back to April of 20, when the pandemic first started, you can see that big decline there in the cost of acquisition versus the prior six months. The reason for that is we were spending very little on customer acquisition, but what we were doing was converting all the people that we'd accumulated onto that database so we'd had a very aggressive drive to recruit new customers in the prior six months we had a database of prospects and then we were then able to convert those prospects at minimal cost so our cost of acquisition at that point in those early stages the pandemic was very low it's around 20 pounds around 20 pounds which was mainly social media that we were spending money on at that point but very importantly when we started um investing in acquisition again in september 20 then that cost of acquisition barely moved upwards it stayed incredibly low and it stayed at a level which was less than half what it had been prior to the pandemic and you can see what's happened since then as well we've stayed at this level at around the 25 to 30 pound mark of acquiring a new customer which is significantly reduced on where we were last year and we see this to be a trend going forward so you can see very clearly from march onwards it's stayed at around that level in fact in fact um decreasing slightly further as we've gone into may and june So I'm going to come on now to talk about our ESG strategy in more detail and our responsibilities as a fashion business. So this falls into three areas. First of all is our ethical operations with our suppliers and logistics provider. Then we'll come on to talk about our responsibilities to the environment and sustainability and also about how we are very committed to Susanda just being a fabulous place to work and having an inclusive and uplifting workplace. So ethics, first of all. So ever since Susanda launched, when we were a very, very small business, we've always been committed to sourcing our products from suppliers who really share our belief in operating responsibly and with integrity. We've now got more than 50 suppliers in several countries across the world, Turkey, China and India being the largest of the three countries that we operate in. We have an internal code of conduct, which we ask all our suppliers to sign up to, which covers ethical and social compliance And then we use independent audits to ensure that they are doing what they say they're doing. But I think importantly, what we really value and we put a lot of importance on is the long term relationships that we have built and are building with new suppliers as well. We have a very close knit relationship with our suppliers. and we have a very open and regular dialogue. And it's important to us that we've got relationships with them from the top down to the shop floor in the factories and the same across our business. So we all know our factories really well right across the business. And then Clipper, who are our logistics partner, have got a very strong focus on their responsibility and they are accredited by the Good Business Charter.

In terms of environmental and sustainability, it's worth noting, of course, that our clothing is very much designed to be robust, long-lasting, and to be worn and washed many, many times. In terms of our product sourcing, we're very much on the road to being able to source 100% of the cotton that we use sustainably, and that would include BCI and organic cotton. as well as on the road to sourcing 100% of the leather that we use in our product as being real grade accredited. In January of this year, we launched and changed our consumer packaging to green PE bags, which you can see the image there. And these are made as a byproduct of the sugar cane production industry. They're recyclable, carbon negative, sustainable, and can be also recycled. The next stage of this process is to roll out similar packaging across the rest of our supply chain, predominantly for inbound shipments from our suppliers. All of the time, we're also trialling using more sustainable yarns and fabrics within our products, such as recycled polyester, organic cotton, Lensing Eco Vero, which is sustainable viscose. And all of these are ongoing in terms of developing new products and launching into the mass range. The other aspect of environmental that we're very conscious of is that today we do bring the majority of our product into the UK using aeroplanes, which we're already increasing quite substantially the proportion of stock that's transported by both sea and train, and that will increase substantially as we move into the future. The final pillar is what we call Fabulous Susanda. We're a small group of people that runs Susanda. We're still less than 50 people today. but we are incredibly proud of how inclusive and open the culture is for those people that work with us. We are very much an open door and a family-friendly policy, and there's lots of communication that takes place with all levels in our organisation. We do create an incredibly supportive environment for our people to learn and to develop in their roles by giving them opportunities way beyond what could be achieved elsewhere. We are also an equal opportunity employer.

Finally, I'll talk about the outlook for the business. So as we've said, we've had a really great start to the new year with revenue up 256% year on year and 45% on the final quarter of the last financial year. We've seen incredibly fast sell through on all our product ranges. We have further investment into the product range for autumn, which will underpinned both the revenue on our own site and also growth with the third parties. We are continuing to invest in customer acquisition, which will in turn continue to fuel the growth in repeat orders. We are continuing to see the improvement in our bottom line, and we are well on the road to getting the business to profitability. And we're poised now in a very good position. The business is in a very good place, and we've got a huge opportunity on which to scale over the coming year and beyond. So that's it on the presentation. Over to you for questions.

And the first question is, what percentage of turnover last year came from repeat customers?

Repeat customers represented in the region of 70% of our total orders last year. And that continues to grow. If we refer back to the chart that's really important for us, it's making sure that once we've recruited a new customer, that that customer becomes a customer of ours for a long period of time. And so it's really pleasing that the repeat customer percentage, not only in terms of the quantum of orders, But also the number of those customers that purchased from us multiple times in that year is increasing, of which that now represents 42%. But the total is 70% of our total orders.

Thank you. And what's your total addressable market for your segment? And what share can you take at maturity? And what's the long-term EBITDA margin target?

okay shall i take the um the addressable market first of all so um the addressable market of of women in the uk that could potentially could shop shop at susandra's in the region of 10 12 million because we've got such a broad um cross-section of ages shopping with us i mean and anybody could really um shop with us of of any age um so it's a huge addressable market in the uk but that's obviously the uk alone um there exists a big opportunity for us to expand internationally. So, which obviously creates, you know, millions and millions. I mean, we barely, I think we would describe it as we've grown incredibly well, but we've barely scratched the surface yet of the addressable market, both in the UK and overseas. In terms of what percentage of the market we could take, the sky's the limit, I think, really. It's just, there is, you know, we see ourselves becoming a large scale retailer. When we launched this business, we looked at how ASOS and Boohoo had developed as businesses at that point, and also what they've gone on to do in the last four and a half years since we've launched. So both Boohoo and ASOS are targeting the 18 to 30 year old demographic, have gone on to become very, very large scale businesses, both in the UK and internationally. And we see that identical opportunity for Susanda with our demographic.

In terms of the EBITDA percentage, I think first and foremost, it's worth recognising we've made massive strides already by substantially reducing our losses. The immediate objective is clearly to get to breakeven and then beyond, which we're absolutely now demonstrating that trajectory is much closer. In terms of what the objective would be in the longer term, it's a hard one to answer, really. But certainly we would be pushing to a double digit percentage of revenue for EBITDA as we start to mature. We can't really put an exact figure on that. But what we're more focused on is growing a sustainable business that's always growing our database and making sure that the customer has got lots of reasons to engage with us as a sander.

Thank you. An inventory decline by one million, greatly helping free cash flow, despite a significant increase in sales. Can you expand on how this was achieved?

The simple answer is stock turn today is much better than it was previously. So we're now running the business on a stock turn and a stock cover level that's very similar to what we would envisage running the business on going forwards. So our sell through, particularly of new products, has been incredibly strong, both on our own site and with third parties. At the same time, that gives some kind of risk or missed opportunity. But we're very quick to repeat buy. And so we can run the business on relatively low stock cover in order to quickly repeat buy. But also we recognise the opportunity with third parties in particular. And what we're aiming to do from the order is grow their stock significantly, still on the broadly the same stock cover, but just turn a higher quantity of stock into revenue.

Thank you. Customer returns dropped during the pandemic as demand shifted to loungewear and activewear. What's the current trend and how do you expect this trend to develop over time?

So, yes, we've seen over the last year, we've seen returns shift really both ways. And it's very much directly related to customer behaviour. So in very simple terms, When people are locked down, they're less likely to return product because they're buying stretchy, comfortable clothing that has low returns levels and also less inclined to go out, I think, to the post office. As restrictions lift, then returns start to normalise, I suppose, is the word that we would use again. So we've seen returns levels really anywhere between... 43 and 47 is probably the kind of the the movement that we've seen so at this point in time we're more at that the higher end of that of that number because people are buying a lot more dresses at the moment because they're sick of wearing loungewear um so um but that's a kind of a comfortable level i think for us in which to operate in that in and what we would have expected as a business obviously it's been a bonus over the last year to have very low returns rates. But where we are now, I think, would be a more normalised returns level for us.

Thank you. How long is your lead time if you need additional stock to meet demand?

It really varies. It varies on the country. It varies on the category into which you're repeating, whether it's Jersey product is quicker to get from Turkey than outerwear from China, for instance. So there isn't a one answer fits all to that. It varies really, but we can turn around something in as little as four weeks on certain categories.

And what's the longest turnaround?

The longest turnaround would be things like knitwear and outerwear, which is planned before season, about three months before. Thank you.

And what's the average holding period for third party stock?

Pretty short, actually, because they sell through so fast. We're replenishing stock, both repeat purchase of existing styles that are on their site, as well as new styles very quickly. They recycle their returns also very quickly. But on average, we're holding... No more than about three to four weeks' worth of stock at any one point in time that they're turning around incredibly quickly. It works very, very well and very efficiently.

Thank you. And you seem to have regular special discount promotions, for example, at the weekend. Does this help to sell inventory quicker?

Yes, we do use promotional discounts both for acquiring customers and to convert customers. existing customers yes i'm in very simple terms it's a tried and tested retail mechanic to to increase revenue and increase conversion thank you and can you talk more about the new options granted to management and why this was done

Sounds like one for me. So the board recognised back in late 2019, actually early 2020, that with the change in the business, with a lot more key staff on board, we needed to review our long-term incentive programme. uh we we put that on hold during the pandemic but now was the time to um address it properly so in simple terms we've added an additional five key staff so every key member of of our team is now the participants in the scheme uh we had pwc review it so it's using all the most efficient mechanics now, employee benefit trusts, nil cost options. And we presented that to, I think it was 21 institutional investors prior to the last fundraise, gained support from all of them for it. That's now in place and it will mean, it does mean slightly more options in the mix, but it gives us on a fully diluted basis, I think a fraction over 11% sitting in our option pool.

Thank you. And moving back to inventory, is it valued at full sale value?

No, it's valued at cost. So the cost that we purchase from our suppliers, that's how we value inventory.

Thank you. And when do you see breakeven?

I probably would refer at this point to a singer's note that is, they've done a guidance note today, which I believe would be accessible for some. They have us breaking even as we move into the next financial year. Important to note that there are periods of time where we're already, or this financial year, there'll be periods of break even, but not the financial year in totality. But there is a singer's guidance note that's been published. Thank you.

And going back to the returns, do you have KPIs that you're working to and can you explain them?

So what we would have is an overall returns target for the business. And then we would then in each category have KPIs. an average returns rate that we need to be achieving in each category in order to meet that overall returns target so so obviously different categories would return at different levels so knitwear and things like leisure and loungewear would have very very low returns rates in the probably 20s and 30s and woven dresses as the highest return rates typically industry averages that are, and for us as well, would be in the 50s. So we have returns rates by category. And then what we also do is we're then looking all the time at the product that is returned on an individual basis. to look at any product that falls outside of what we would expect. So whether that be high returns rates, in which case we need to analyze why those returns are so high, or indeed if the returns rates are low for the category, what we can learn from that in order to then reapply it to other products going forward. So I'd say it's a combination of having targets and then analyzing each individual garment in order to make sure we hit those targets or improve on those targets.

Great, many thanks. And how has Brexit impacted your supply chain process? Has it adjusted your supply chain strategy?

In one word, no. We're very aware by working with our partners, the whole situation to do with Brexit and what the impacts and implications are. We're noting at the moment we only sell or we sell only in the UK. So the movement of goods to consumers outside of our borders, it's not something that we've had to overly concern ourselves with at the moment. That said, we are very conscious about growth. And I think we mentioned earlier, that we have an eye on international expansion at a point in the future. So we're very alive with also with some advisors about how to manage that situation in the most effective manner. Movement of goods, the returns process, the stock, the duties, we're very aware of what changes have taken place. So all of that will be considered when we move forward. From an inbound shipment perspective, when we're bringing goods in from our suppliers, Broadway, nil impact, I would probably say in answer to that question.

Thank you. And is there still no interest to pursue other markets, for example, menswear or children's wear?

I think we'd never say never to pursuing other markets, but there's so much still to go for in terms of the women's market. So we've launched a lot of new categories this year, but there's still room to develop both in the core categories that we already have. There's still lots of development going on there. There's also new categories that we can go into as well. On top of that, within the women's wear, there's plus size, there's petite. There's so many different areas. So we'd never say never to men's wear or to children's wear. But I think we've got a lot to go up with the women's wear section first.

Thank you. And is the potential to expand into Europe by, say, full year 2023?

I don't think I'll put a date on it, if you don't mind. But what we will say is that, yes, we are actively looking at opportunities with both still in the UK. We've got lots of opportunity in the UK with with additional partners or the way in which we interact with the consumer, but also internationally as well, whether that's in Europe or further afield, Asia, the U.S., all of them are on our radar. And we do have conversations and we're in research mode, I would probably say at the moment, to decide what route, how we interact and which markets we believe are right and appropriate for when we do go and expand beyond the UK. So it's very much on our radar. Thank you.

And excluding business growth, which quarter would you expect to have higher sales?

In terms of year on year growth, the first quarter will be the largest because the comparative in terms of the prior year when the pandemic first hit was the lowest. So in terms of year on year growth, it will be the first quarter. But as we move forward and we start to invest the funds that came from the fundraise, it will most likely be quarter three as we start to execute the plans in the future. But we've got a steady growth. And I think a lot of the charts that we've shared show a gradual and a sustained growth as we go through time. So that will also be overlaid into giving you a fuller answer.