Moss Bros today posted a £2.1m surge in pre-tax profit to £3m for the year to January 26, 2012, Retail Week looks at its turrnaround.

After delivering a second consecutive year of profit, the formalwear retailer has proven its revival plan is working.

Hit by the recession, Moss Bros fell into the red in 2008, making a loss of £1.4m but four years on, the retailer has successfully transformed itself as a multichannel retailer and chief executive Brian Brick is targeting a truly omnichannel business by the end of the current financial year.

“We’re very pleased with the results,” says Brick. “It’s really been down to following the plan Rob and I implemented four years back.

“The sale of Cecil Gee and Boss (in 2011) allowed us to concentrate on the core business. It’s not one thing that has done it, it’s lots of little things.”

Since then Moss Bros has worked hard to improve its own brand products, such as Moss Bespoke, and has introduced new lines from other brands across its hire and retail divisions, working closely with its popular brands Ted Baker and French Connection.

In 2011 the retailer trialled a new store format, which comprises hire, retail and bespoke under one roof. Last year it rolled out elements of it across 14 stores and it has plans to refit 90 in the next five years.

It was last year the retailer went back into the black a year earlier than planned with a £900,000 profit.

But the momentum hasn’t stopped and since then Moss Bros has embraced e-commerce, with customer take-up of click-and-collect making up 20% of online sales already, after launching the service and relaunching the website in January. And there is still a huge amount of scope for the retailer, as online sales make up just 2% of total sales.

Brick believes click-and-collect works particularly well for its products in retail and hire. “I think it suits the style of product we sell,” he says.

“Instead of picking up a parcel customers can try it on in store but they might need an alteration and they might buy a suit and tie to go with it whilst they are there.”

And he comments that at a time when other retailers are looking to close stores, Moss Bros wants to open more stores. But Brick is cautious, seeking the most financially viable stores and keeping to 10-year leases with five-year break clauses.

Last year it invested in its staff, sending six people to the Oxford Summer School as it looks to retain its workforce to keep them in the business.

“We can give them a belief in the business and they can see it is going places,” adds Brick.

But the fight is not over for Moss Bros, which has seen like-for-like sales fall 2.4% since year-end, impacted by the cold weather, as it start to take deliveries of summer lines and linen garments.

And Brick is not about to rest on his laurels just yet as he already has plans in the pipeline to bring stores and digital closer together, which includes launching a transactional site for the hire business in the second half of the year. And he is about to undertake a customer insight project to help develop a “clearer brand proposition for the business”, appointing interim marketing director Gemma Bird in February to help.

It is an impressive transformation of the business which was founded in 1850. After 163 years in the market, with these changes Moss Bros looks set to lead the formalwear market for quite a few years yet.