Seasalt reports Christmas 16 percent sales uplift

Cornish clothing brand Seasalt has reported that every channel set “new records for the Christmas period,” for the five-week trading period to December 30, 2023.

Total sales across online, stores and through marketplace partners increased by 16 percent, compared to the same period in 2022, while its retail stores reported its second consecutive record Christmas as consumers continued to return to the high street.

Overall, store revenues were up 17 percent, while online sales remained strong throughout the Christmas season and increased by 11 percent over 2022, despite what the retailer states have been a challenging 18 months for online trading, the channel has still enjoyed “positive growth”.

The retailer also noted the increasing importance of its third-party marketplace partners, including M&S, Next and Zalando, which went from “strength to strength” in 2023, as sales over Christmas increased by 32 percent across its partnership portfolio.

Jon Lewis, chief trading officer at Seasalt Cornwall, said in a statement: “It is really pleasing to see all three of our principal sales channels perform so well over the festive season. We have a good balance across our channels, which helps to provide resilience in difficult trading conditions but also leads to outstanding performance when all three are doing well.

“The results reflect our customer's reaction to new full-price product and a great response to our end-of-season sale.

Seasalt Cornwall enjoys record Christmas and strong growth

For the full year to the end of January 2023, Seasalt said its statutory accounts show “strong revenue growth” over the previous year, up 22 million pounds (23 percent) to 118 million pounds. The store channel enjoyed the bulk of growth with stores up 12 percent like-for-like on (pre-Covid) 2019 as customers returned to the high street to re-engage with a physical shopping experience.

While underlying EBITDA for the year was more than 8.5 million pounds, up from 7.9 million pounds the previous year.

In terms of outlook, Seasalt expects revenue for the full year to January 27, 2024, to be up 12.5 percent and exceed a total of 135 million pounds, while EBITDA is anticipated to reach more than 10 million pounds. Boosted by store growth increasing by another 10 percent like-for-like year-to-date over 2022 and partners up 39 percent year-on-year.

Paul Hayes, chief executive officer at Seasalt Cornwall, added: “Sales have been strong throughout the key festive trading weeks in 2023 and we’re proud to have been able to build on the success we’ve seen in recent years, despite ongoing external economic challenges.

“2024 is set to be a milestone year as we open our first stores in North America and we’re already seeing positive early signs of progress from our international growth over the past year which is giving us confidence for the year ahead.”