(Sharecast News) - Womens' fashion brand In The Style updated the market on its 're-engineering' turnaround plan on Friday, as it worked to increase its profitability and manage its cash position.
The AIM-traded firm, which was holding its annual general meeting, said it had made "significant progress" against several of its strategic priorities, having moved its operations to a new, larger 84,000 square foot warehouse at the end of August, which was now fully operational.
It said it expected efficiencies gained through the move to provide benefits to its distribution costs per unit, while also providing sufficient capacity for future growth.
In The Style said it also successfully launched 'FITS', a collection of own-brand wardrobe staples, with the level of gross order value generated on launch day being "one of the largest" of the year-to-date.
The board said the FITS brand would provide the group with additional opportunities to engage with its customers and increase sales outside of its traditional influencer campaign launch cycle.
Good progress was meanwhile reported in optimising stock buys, in line with the company's strategic focus on increasing the proportion of full price sales.
It said it expected that the buy quantity reductions would benefit the level of gross margin generated by the group from October onwards.
Finally, In The Style said it had completed a restructuring of its marketing, technology and product departments to increase operating efficiencies from October.
The firm said it was continuing to manage cash carefully and, as at 21 September, had net cash of £4.3m, following investment and exceptional items of £0.6m as part of its warehouse move, in line with the board's expectations.
Its invoice discounting facility remained undrawn, with £0.8m of liquidity available.
"We have made solid progress against the group's refined long-term growth strategy outlined at our 2022 results in July," said chief executive officer Sam Perkins.
"Notable highlights have included the launch of our own-brand collection called FITS to a very encouraging customer reaction, as well as several important operational milestones including the move to a more efficient and scalable warehouse."
Perkins said that as had been "widely reported", the current trading environment was a challenging one for both consumers and retailers.
"The launch model and our position as a pure-play online retailer allows us to respond quickly to changing consumer behaviour, whilst not losing sight of achieving In The Style's long-term potential as one of the UK's most exciting fashion brands."
At 0907 BST, shares in In The Style Group were down 1.51% at 26.1p.
Reporting by Josh White at Sharecast.com.
