News: Shoply grows online retails business in transformative year

Online retail company Shoply Limited (ASX:SHP) has made good on its strategy to broaden its scope and economies of scale over FY2015 by targeting greater value from its expenditure in online marketing tools.

Shoply's activity in recent months has focused on developing marketing programs to increase brand awareness of stores and products, with the company planning to further expand its operating platform to support the growth of existing assets and future acquisitions. 

Although Shoply’s newly acquired Your Home Depot (YHD) business experienced setbacks related to the complexity of integrating into the company’s existing operating platform, the initiation of a number of measures aimed at enhancing performance have been demonstrated to be effective.

These efforts included expanding product ranges and repositioning the YHD online store as a semi-premium retailer. As a result of this action the company believes the transition phase of FY15 has paved the way for an optimistic FY16 outlook.

During the year, Shoply worked to successfully bring its four stores (each with different IT systems, cultures, processes and customer expectations) together under the one Shoply banner.

This integration has produced and continues to contribute to positive financial and operational results including reduced fixed overheads, continual improvement in business processes and a 995% increase in annual revenue to $A18.5 million.

The expansion of suppliers and products to develop a more comprehensive product offering is also expected to improve the scale of the company's businesses with the launch of a mobile app for all individual brands next year.

For FY2016, Shoply has provided revenue guidance of $18.5 million to $26.5 million in organic growth and EBITDA  ($619,000) down $1.5 million through revenue increases, margin improvement, cost reduction and management.

The company held cash and cash equivalents at the end of June totalling $2,307,250.