Online greetings card retailer Moonpig.com is confident of continued growth and is eyeing further international markets after reporting pre-tax profits more than doubled.
The etailer, which is in its 10th year, more than doubled its revenue from £20.9m in the year to April, up from £7.9m the year before. Moonpig’s pre-tax profits soared from £2.5m to £6.7m for the same period.
Chairman and founder Nick Jenkins said: “We are part of a £1.6bn market in the UK and there is plenty of room to grow. I can see us being several times bigger in the coming years.”
Moonpig has a factory in Guernsey to serve its UK market and Australia. “Australia has the closest greeting card culture to us, with a similar sense of humour,” Jenkins said. He wants to open up to further English-speaking markets, including the US.
The cards specialist has defied the retail downturn, which has dogged some of its competitors. In May, Clinton Cards had to put its Birthdays group into administration, and prior to that Celebrations hit the buffers. Clinton did buy back 196 of its Birthdays shops, but 152 had to close, with the loss of 800 posts.
Jenkins said that Moonpig has an advantage over high street card stores in terms of choice. He said: “We have 10,000 designs on our site – five times as many as a high street shop.”
However, he said there is still a strong high street market for cards. He said: “We don’t expect to be able to take over the high street. Some people will always leave it till last minute and we cannot serve them.”
Jenkins said repeat orders continued to fuel the business’s growth, with its 2.6 million customers often buying for several occasions a year. “People are excited about our product. With all retail propositions if you get the product right it flies.”
Moonpig delivered almost 6 million cards in 2008/09 and had over 20 million visits to its site. The company, which now employs 63 people, got its name from Jenkins’ childhood nickname.
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