Seasalt rise continues ahead of "milestone year" as Christmas proves strong

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Jan 17, 2024

Seasalt — the UK fashion brand that’s all about its Cornish heritage — continues to outperform the sector, setting a “new record for the Christmas period” as revenue rose as much as 16% in the five weeks to 30 December.

That news comes as the company prepares to go international with its first stores in North America planned for this year.

The December revenue figure took in sales through its own shops and webstore as well as via marketplace partners.

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And it did well in physical stores with revenue through this channel climbing by 17% while online sales were up 11% compared to the previous year. 

Both of those figures are encouraging given that fashion physical stores were hugely challenged in the pre-Christmas period and online also struggled across the UK fashion sector.

As mentioned, the brand’s also sells through marketplaces and it said third-party link ups with big players such as M&S, Next and Zalando, went from “strength to strength” in 2023. In fact, across those partnerships, sales rose a massive 32% in the Christmas trading period.

Seasalt’s chief trading officer Jon Lewis (no relation to John Lewis) said: “It is incredibly wonderful to see all three of our main sales channels perform so strongly over the holiday season. We have a strong balance between our channels, allowing them to give resilience in challenging trade situations while also resulting in exceptional results when all three are performing well.”

The Christmas performance meant that the company is upbeat for full-year sales in the 12 months to the end of January 2024 with a 12.5% increase expected. That would mean sales reaching £135 million. 

Seasalt also thinks EBITDA will come in above £10 million, helped by like-for-like growth through stores of 10% and partner growth of 39%.

In the previous year, revenue rose 23% to £118 million with physical store sales up by 12%. EBITDA came in above £8.5 million, higher than £7.9 million of the year before.

CEO Paul Hayes added: “Sales have been high through the important festive trading weeks in 2023, and we’re proud to have managed to build on the success we’ve experienced in recent years, despite continuing 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.”