‘Tough retail climate’ sees Very UK revenue decline in third quarter

The UK ecommerce native reported an 8.9% increase in home sales and a 24.6% increase in its sport category when the impact of Nike moving to a direct-to-commerce model was excluded.

The impact of this move by the US sportswear giant remains significant. When the impact of Nike is removed, the retailer said revenue for Very UK only declined by 0.5%.

In its results presentation, Very said the sales decline was the “result of a tough retail climate across the UK”.

Its biggest category electricals saw a sales decline of 4.4%, which the company attributed to gaming product releases not being as strong as the year before. 

Overall group sales fell by 3.8% to £1.67bn, including a 15.1% drop in Littlewoods revenue. The group is managing the decline of this part of the business.

Despite falling revenue, the shift to home sales helped drive the group’s gross margin rate to 35.1%, 0.3 points higher than last year.

Pre-exceptional EBITDA was £214.9m, representing a margin of 13.4%, up 8.9% on the previous year. This is the highest margin reported by the group since quarterly reporting began.

The group also saw the amount owed by customers – its debtor book – decrease by 0.9% year on year because of lower retail sales. However, interest income as a share of the debtor book remained consistent at 17.2%.

“As we continue to focus on higher margin sales and cost discipline through the remainder of FY25, we expect to see a continued strengthening of the profitability of our business,” the company said in a statement released alongside the results.