Victorian Plumbing Announces Record Turnover of £118m

Victorian Plumbing announce record £118m turnover for 2018, with £145m projected turnover for next year.

Victorian Plumbing continue to be the largest online-only bathroom retailer, with turnover of nearly double their nearest competitor.

Victorian Plumbing have announced their financial results for 2018, growing 12% pro-rata from 2017 to announce a record turnover of £118m for the year ending 30.9.18. The results continue the trend of Victorian Plumbing being the most successful online-only bathroom retailer. The company’s profits of £3.5m for 2018 are also their best to date and outperform their closest competitor, Bathstore, which recorded comprehensive losses of £29.3m in their most recent results.

This success is set to continue into 2019, with current projections showing that Victorian Plumbing are on course for a turnover of £145m for the year ending 30.9.19, with a projected growth of 22.8%. Independent ownership is a rarity in the sector, making Victorian Plumbing’s strong performance even more notable, without the extra financial backing that their competitors may reply upon.

Television remained the most important medium for brand awareness, with Victorian Plumbing’s adverts generating over 400,000,000 brand impressions via the format. The company cite taking a data-driven approach as key to their success, tracking TV investment, optimising their channel mix and investment levels to balance response and brand awareness.

Exploring other avenues for growing their brand awareness, the company expanded their marketing efforts to include collaborations with the fashion designer Julien Macdonald on an exclusive collection, a creative campaign with Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen and a partnership with Fox Studios for the release of the film Deadpool 2. Successful promotional campaigns for partners such as Grohe and Mira meant that the company was also able to augment B2C engagement on their social media channels.

The company’s strong profits (£3.5m) come despite paying £1.75m to competitor Victoria Plum, a settlement fee from a court case over competitive bidding on Google Adwords. Victorian Plumbing successfully counterclaimed and had permission to take the case to The Court of Appeal but chose to settle and return all of their focus to being the market leader in online bathroom retail. The case had no adverse effects on business and Victorian Plumbing continue to be dominant, leading in both profitability and market share with close to double the turnover of their nearest competitor.

Mark Radcliffe, Managing Director:
“Continued growth for the business is our main priority. The online bathroom market is still relatively young and the opportunities increase every year with more and more people turning to the internet for better value and service. To support our growth we’ve made a considerable investment in our infrastructure and brand. We aim to continue taking more market share by offering market leading service and the widest range of products.

My goal is to be number one for profitability, service and turnover. Being top in all three areas has always been a target and priority for me. We have held these impressive positions for several years now and the current figures show that we’re on target to become the largest and most profitable bathroom retailer in the UK, overtaking Bathstore.

We have bold and exciting marketing ventures planned for 2019 that are already underway. We set the bar when it comes to our marketing budget and no other company in our sector invests so heavily in this area. Reinvesting into the business has been the key to our success and this is thanks to the efforts of the Victorian Plumbing team and suppliers.”

Source : Victorian Plumbing

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