Demonetisation no match for Koovs

India-focussed fashion e-commerce retailer Koovs updated the market on its trading for the year to 31 March on Tuesday, ahead of its annual results.

The AIM-traded company said its strategy continued to deliver significant growth with sales up by 87% to £18.6m for the full year, underpinned by a year-on-year 100% increase in both units shipped and repeat customers.

While demonetisation in India impacted the whole market, Koovs said its proactive approach on customer payment and delivery options, coupled with a strong Christmas trading period, meanst it delivered growth of more than 5x the Indian e-commerce market as a whole.

The company said it continued to improve its gross margin position by improving intake margin and controlling the level of discounts given, and expected to generate positive gross margins in FY18.

Registered users were up 80% to 1.8 million, the board said, with web traffic improving 77% to more than 78.45 million visits.

Social media followers now exceeded 2 million.

“Koovs' distinctive fashion proposition is really working with our young target market in India,” said CEO Mary Turner.

“Engagement with our young customer is delivering strong growth and we continue to significantly outperform by five-times the e-commerce sector growth in India.”

Waheed Alli, chairman of Koovs, added that India was now well established as the fastest growing economy in the world.

“Koovs' authentic global fashion is the right proposition at the right time in this major market and there remains huge confidence for its continued growth,” Alli said.