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Wiggle has published its annual report and financial statements for the 52 weeks ending 30th December 2018.
The report said that during the period, the company has continued to improve efficiency and to lower costs through the integration of Wiggle and CRC, as well as continuing to develop the customer proposition.
By the end of the period, the company had completed a significant proportion of the integration of Wiggle and CRC. This integration has moved Wiggle and CRC onto one common ERP IT platform, with a common product pool, and with the exception of marketing and digital, combined all other head office functions. Distribution has been consolidated from five main sites into two and inventory has been reduced by over 7%. “This has already driven significant cost and efficiency improvements, with further benefits to be realised in 2019,” said the report.
The final stage of the integration commenced during the period, with the start of a project to mitigate the CRC website onto the same platform as the Wiggle website. This will remove a significant amount of duplicated cost from the business in terms of developing and maintaining two websites, Wiggle has said. This project is planned for completion in 2020.
Revenues from own brands have grown strongly during the period and are an increasing proportion of WiggleCRC’s sales mix. The portfolio of own brands includes DHB, Nukeproof, Vitus and Prime. “The ability to market these brands across the Wiggle, CRC and Bike 24 websites allows new customers to be targeted with this unique offering and, as a result, sales of these brands have grown by 25% in 2018 at a margin rate above that of third-party brands,” said the company. “Continued growth in this area is a key strategic focus for the business in the coming years.”
Revenue has increased to £345,482,000 (2017: £259,187,000) driven by the inclusion of CRC trade for the full 12 months as opposed to four months of the comparative period.
Loss before tax and before taking account of non-recurring costs was £35,730,000 (2017: loss of £17,212,000).
For the current period, the total loss before tax was £37,950,000 (2017: £23,219,000) after taking account of non-recurring costs.
The company has net liabilities of £46,337,000 (2017: £8,378,000).
