Internet garment printer Redbubble has revealed to investors it is soaring above all financial expectations and is on track for further growth, with six new physical products and German and French websites launched.
The ecommerce company – founded ten years ago by three friends in Melbourne – commenced trading on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) two months ago and is now worth a massive $300m. It enables deisgners to upload designs then consumers to order those designs with garments such as T-shirts, caps and pillowcases.
In its quarterly update to investors, the company says, “Redbubble has had a strong year and finished FY2016 above expectations, meeting or exceeding all reported financial IPO forecast numbers.”
Redbubble was only slightly ahead of its FY2016 revenue forecast of $114.5m generating an actual revenue of $114.6m and actual gross profit reached $39m compared to the prediction of $38.5m.
Redbubble’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) sat at a loss of $8.6m, however this was against the predicted figure of $10.1m.
Although gross transaction value (GTV) climbed seven per cent compared to last quarter, the company says GTV growth in June was negatively impacted by the fallout from Brexit.
Redbubble says this was also compounded by a system bug and a redesign of its website homepage, both of which affected Google traffic to the site.
Profiting from a successful combination of print and the web, Redbubble’s online portal has seen site visits soar by 43 per cent from 103.1m visits for FY2015 to 147.8m in FY2016.
Its customer base has also rocketed by 53 per cent from 1.44m customers in FY2015 to 2.20m customers in FY2016.
Redbubble founder and CEO Martin Hosking says their simplistic business model has put the company in good standing: link the audience with the root of the print work, the designers and artists.
He adds, “People will always need and want print, but now they will want this in a far more customised way. The industry is leaning away from mass production and into niche customisation and that is where the selling point is.”
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