Sales were slashed by almost £40m at an online beauty products retailer after customers returned to High Street stores after the end of Covid-19 restrictions during its latest financial year, new documents have revealed.
Beauty Bay, which is headquartered in Manchester, has posted a turnover of £93m for the 12 months to March 31, 2022, down from the £134.4m it achieved during the prior year.
However, the latest figure is still above the £82.2m it reported for the year to March 31, 2020.
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The company said the fall in its turnover was "primarily driven by a return to more normalised levels of customer acquisition and orders post-Covid following an exceptional increase in levels of new customer acquisition in the prior year where customers switched away from traditional High Street retail to online retail to purchase beauty products during the Covid lockdown period".
Newly-filed accounts with Companies House also shows that the business fell to a pre-tax loss of £9.3m in the year after making a £9.2m profit in the prior 12 months.
Beauty Bay was founded in 1999 by brothers Arron and David Gabbie and sells makeup, skincare, bath and body, haircare, gifts and other accessories.
The business mulled plans to become a public company at the end of 2020 but shelved the proposals in May 2022.
During its latest financial year, the number of people employed by the business increased from 150 to 183.
A statement signed off by the board said: "The group remains focused on delivering profitable future growth and has continued to drive increased order values and cash margins per order together with delivering continuous improvement and cost optimisation programmes to deliver a number of significant cost savings post year-end."
It added: "The group traded very strongly throughout the Covid-19 pandemic in the prior year to 31 March 2021 and, whilst seeing a softening of demand post-lockdown in the year to 31 March 2022 as consumers were able to return back to a mixture of online and High Street retail, the group delivered a 13% increase in revenue versus pre-pandemic levels.
"The group remains focused on delivering profitable growth and has continued to look to optimise its key cost areas, making a number of significant cost savings post year end, together with focusing on increasing order values and cash margins per order which it has successfully achieved."
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