Hut Group has strong cyber season, inks deal with Jack Wills and others

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Dec 7, 2020

The Hut Group said Monday that sales were “ahead of expectations across all divisions” for October and November and it also announced a new deal with Jack Wills to power the clothing brand’s e-tail site.

Jack Wills will be THG Ingenuity's first project with Frasers Group, as part of a wider partnership agreement. Ingenuity will deliver a full end-to-end e-commerce solution for Jack Wills, including fulfilment and digital brand-building. The deal covers the US, Australia and Asia-Pacific, allowing the brand to expand its presence in key international territories.

And there were other deals unveiled too. New Zealand-based Antipodes Skincare has worked with Ingenuity and launched a D2C website in the UK, as part of plans to expand its digital reach. The beauty brand also plans to launch D2C sites in North America and Europe.

Note Cosmetique has also agreed a D2C partnership with it to build a UK and US digital presence with potential for further global growth. The end-to-end contract spans merchandising, trading, fulfilment, hosting, translations and brand development.   

And Warner Bros Consumer Products has agreed a D2C contract  that includes wholesale and B2B trading rights, as well as enabling further digital growth across the UK, EU, US and APAC territories. 

Meanwhile, the recently-listed company, which is also a brand owner, and operates its own D2C mono and multibrand webstores for beauty and fashion, said it has seen “new customer acquisition trends further accelerate into Q4 across all divisions”. This was supported by “very strong performances during Singles Day, Black Friday and Cyber Week”. 

That translated into new active customers in November totalling over 1.7 million (+74% year-on-year), with almost 900,000 new customers in Cyber Week alone. And customer retention rates and average spend per customer “have seen continuing positive trends, further underpinning a very strong performance during the most important trading period of the year”.

Importantly, this has been “broad-based across all brands and territories, resulting in the group now expecting a significant outperformance for both Q4 and FY20, versus previous guidance”.

Six weeks ago, it had said FY20 revenue would be up between 30% and 33% at £1.48 billion to £1.52 billion. But it now expects a rise of between 38% and 40%. That will come as Q4 should rise between 40% and 45% compared to earlier expectations of growth as low at 16%.

It’s maintaining its medium-term guidance of annual revenue growth of 20% to 25% and stable adjusted EBITDA margins.