Temple & Webster earnings rocket 668 per cent year to date

Dean Blake

18th Jun 2020

Furniture brand Temple & Webster saw sales skyrocket in the second half of the year, with revenue growing 90 per cent on the prior corresponding period. 

All major categories saw a significant uplift as customers turned to online to fill their homewares and furniture needs during lockdown, leading to an EBITDA result of $7.1 million through the May 31 – up 668 per cent. 

“As a team, we remain proud that we have played a small part in being able to help Australians set up their homes during this crisis,” Temple & Webster chief executive Mark Coulter said. 

The business has seen active customers grow 68 per cent in the year-to-date to 440,257, and a year-to-date revenue increase of 68 per cent to $151.7 million.

“We can already see in our numbers that many of the customers who have never shopped with us before, and may be first time online shoppers in our category, have already returned and made repeat purchases,” Coulter said. 

“Our strategy of being a category specialist, with a clear customer offering built around the largest range of furniture and homewares in the country, combined with the most inspirational content and the best customer service continues to resonate.”

Temple & Webster has remained profitable and cash flow positive throughout FY20, after delivering its first profitable year in FY19. 

Coulter stressed that the business operated under a capital-light business model, and a debt-free balance sheet, and was seeing strong growth due to being well placed to take advantage of the shift from offline to online. 

Despite the strong showing, the overall trend for the furniture and homeware goods sector isn’t nearly as convincing – with the ABS seeing a 0.1 per cent fall in the sector during April, and estimating a 7.5 per cent fall in furniture specifically.

This can largely be attributed to the closing of physical spaces during lockdown, however, as NAB’s online retail sales index for April showing that online spending in the homewares and appliances sector rose 22.6 per cent.