Dr Martens is pleased with its Christmas preparations (PA)
(Picture: PA Archive)Dr Martens took a kicking on the floor of the London Stock Exchange today despite reporting significant revenue growth from its e-commerce sales.
The bootmaker managed to outflank supply chain woes and lockdown restrictions to report an 11% rise in revenue in the final quarter of 2021.
The company, led by Kenny Wilson, focused on e-commerce after lockdown restrictions hit, leading to an increase in direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales of 33%. Direct-to-consumer sales of the British brand were up 40% in Europe and 4% in the US.
Wilson said: “We continued to put our long-term custodian approach at the heart of decision making and proactively managed the business against a changing Covid backdrop, prioritising the higher margin DTC channels in line with our strategy.“
Susannah Streeter of Hargreaves Lansdown said: ‘’Dr Martens has put its best foot forward when it comes to e-commerce, and has prioritised direct to consumer sales over wholesale shipments to stores, where margins are higher.”
A sharp decrease in footfall after the emergence of the Omicron Covid variant constrained a retail recovery. Despite this, the company has expanded its own-brand stores, opening two new outlets in Italy and four in the US. It takes its total number of stores globally to 158.
The impact of Covid on both manufacturing and global shipping led to lower wholesale performance.
Shares fell 45p to 277.68p in London, a drop of 14%.
The iconic footwear brand remains confident that its online focus will help it meet full-year forecasts.
Dr Martens went public in January 2021 at 310p. Its share price peaked above 500p a month later but has nosedived since.
Susannah Streeter at Hargreaves Lansdown said there were concerns the brand could fall out of fashion.
“Trends do still wax and wane and there is still a risk, the pulling power of Dr Martens could fade over time,” she said.
