Tills start to fill for retailer
STRUGGLING online retailer Temple & Webster is trimming its losses and still expects to post its first annual profit in 2019.
The furniture and homewares retailer has forecast an earnings loss of between $6.8 million and $7.3 million for the 2016-17 financial year, an improvement of more than 50 per cent on the previous year.
Temple & Webster, which listed on the share market in December 2015, expects to make a loss of about $500,000 in the June quarter, an improvement from a $3.1 million loss in the same period a year earlier.
“We again grew revenues while improving our margins and cost base, and continue to make great progress on all our key metrics,” chief executive Mark Coulter said yesterday.
The company sells about 130,000 furniture and homewares products online, and had a rocky first year as a listed company, with big advertising spending partly to blame for a net loss of $44.4 million in the 2015-16 year.
Mr Coulter said Temple & Webster expected to generate revenue growth of about 4 per cent in 2016-17, and he was confident of reaching profitability in 2018 and delivering the company’s first full year of profit in 2019.
The company’s shares have plummeted more than 85 per cent since its market listing, but were up three cents, or 22 per cent, at 16.5 cents in afternoon trade.