MySale profits rocket as revenue creeps up

Underlying pre-tax profit soared 226% to A$3.3m, while underlying EBITDA rose 59% to A$87m.

However, reported profit swung to a loss of A$1.5m, from a profit of A$167,000 the previous year.

The group manages its operations by underlying EBITDA as this discounts the “impact of a number of one-off and non-cash items of a non-trading nature” and “provides a more representative measure of the group’s performance”.

Revenue rose 6% to A$268.4m in the year to June 30, 2017.

The biggest sales jump came from MySales’ rest of the world division, which excludes Australia, New Zealand and southeast Asia. Revenue rose 31% and gross profit was up 14%.

In Australia and New Zealand, sales were up 5% and gross profit rose 15%.

In southeast Asia, sales and gross profits rose 7%.

Growth strategy

MySale attributed its growth to its strategy, put in place after its 2014 profit warning, to focus on high-lifetime-value customers.

It added that it had also made significant technological bounds including expanding its marketplace platform via scalable technology, establishing a single view of global inventory across all website and creating endless-aisle technology.

MySale increased its M&A activity, a core part of its strategy, over the past year, acquiring personalised books retailer Identity Direct at the end of the year. It also launched its own buy-now, pay-later system, OurPay.

The business heralded a good start to the year and said that both revenue and underlying profitability were growing strongly.

Chief executive Carl Jackson said: “We are very pleased with the group’s progress during the year and the improved financial performance, which delivered significantly increased underlying EBITDA.

“Sustained focus on our strategic goals has delivered yet another year of growing revenue and, more importantly, increasing profitability.

“Investment into our proprietary technology has accelerated and this year saw the launch of a brand new platform which will support all the group’s activities, including marketplace, in the future.

“We carried good momentum into this year and have a number of exciting strategic initiatives that will support our continued growth in revenue and profitability.

“This year has started well with revenue growth accelerating from last year and strong growth in underlying profitability. While our peak trading period is still ahead of us, we expect that underlying EBITDA for the year will be at least in line with the upper end of market expectations.”