Luxury fashion etailer Net-A-Porter has seen sales jump by almost a fifth during a year where it focused on preparing for future global expansion.
The ecommerce retailer said sales rose 18 per cent to £434.7 million in the year to March, according to figures filed at Companies House. During the year it opened new offices in Manhattan in June 2012, Hong Kong in September and Singapore in December of the same year.
The new offices were opened in preparation for the launch of an Asia-Pacific website in March 2013 and sites translated into French, German and Mandarin in the same month.
The company opened a third distribution centre in Hong Kong and upgraded existing facilities in the US - in New Jersey - and London, including 'continued investment in warehouse automation and on the IT systems, particularly on mobile and tablet channels and applications'.
'Trading since the period end has been ahead of the [comparable period beginning March 2012] and the directors expect this to continue throughout the year,' it said.
Net-a-Porter said it reduced levels of discounting during the year following an emphasis on growing full price sales. That delivered gross margins of 45.6 per cent from 41.2 per cent the previous year.
Profit before share-based payment charges and tax, as a percentage of sales, increased from 0.6 per cent to 1.9 per cent.
Share-based payments increased from £29.4 million to £31.3 million. That meant pretax losses were £23.2 million - still an improvement on the previous years loss of £27 million following the improvement in full-price sales-related margin improvements.
The share-based payment plan included an additional 350 'B' shares in the business sold to new joiners on the executive team. A further 176 'B' shares lapsed and were converted into deferred 'B' shares.
The value of the shares created are based on approved management forecasts for company growth of between 10 per cent and 15 per cent per year over five years and additional projections for another five. The projections a based on no change in the level of EBITDA - earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation.
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