Womenswear retailer Sosandar on Tuesday said that revenue in the six months to the end of September fell to £16.2 million from £22.2 million a year earlier as it “continued to transition away from price promotional activity outside the major scheduled sale events”.

Despite the sales fall, it saw a strong gross margin of 62.2% against 55.4% in the prior period, something that clearly supported it strategy. 

That helped it see a substantial positive swing profit wise as it announced a £0.7 million pre-tax loss compared to a £1.3 million loss on that basis a year earlier.

During the period the company moved into physical retail from its previous online-only business model and opened it first stores, saying that it has seen strong trading in all of them. Importantly too, this has been “coupled with a demonstrable uplift in traffic to the website in the areas where the stores are located”.

The company opened in Marlow, Chelmsford, and the Metrocentre in Gateshead, and is soon to open in St David’s centre, Cardiff. 

“These locations were carefully selected for being affluent, thriving locations where Sosandar customers over-index,” it said. “We are pleased with the progress of our store portfolio thus far, with sales tracking in line with our expectations”.

It also continues to benefit from its strong third-party partnerships, including Next and Marks & Spencer in the UK. Its partnership with The Iconic in Australia “has also started well”. 

As for current trading, October “has started well across all channels, with revenue being ahead of last year, which represents a substantial positive swing compared with H1, and a continuation of a strong gross margin as we head towards our seasonal peak”.

Based on this and its full-price strategy, its FY25 revenue expectations have been moderated to £40 million from market expectations of £45.6 million, while pre-tax profit expectations of £1 million are “unchanged given continuing margin strength, evolution of customer engagement strategy and careful management of other overheads”.