“Volatile, but successful year”
“2013 was a volatile, but also a very successful year for s.Oliver as we were not only able to grow our net sales (just like the past few years), but also managed to grow total turnover. We are definitely happy with the full-year results”, CFO Thomas Steinhart said.
The brand opened 31 new stores in Austria, Croatia, India, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland in the past fiscal year. Its entire range of stores currently represent 40 % of the group’s total turnover, while wholesale still brings in 60 %. Both German (1.01 billion euro) and foreign sales (261 million euro in export) grew, while Germany remains by far its largest market.
s. Oliver plans for multichannel
The fashion group is also going forward with its multichannel strategy. “The supporting customer service through tablet computer and our Click & Collect service have brought our online branch much closer to our retail branch, giving us the option to answer customers’ demands much better”, according to Thomas Kronefeld (managing director International Retail).
New CEO (since January) Reiner Pichler has high hopes for the current fiscal year. “We believe sales will continue to grow strongly. Investing to make the brand more attractive while we also expand internationally (both in Germany and abroad) will have a sustainable effect.” The German fashion group currently has some 7,000 employees.