Sofa retailer Sofology, known for its Neal the Sloth advertising campaign on Channel 4's Gogglebox, has upped annual revenues by 40 per cent to more than £140m as it reaped the rewards of moving away from short-term discounts and commission-based selling.
The Golborne-headquartered company, which was formerly known as CSL and then Sofaworks, posted sales of £142.9m in the 2015 calendar year, up from £102m in 2014. This included the impact of new store openings although the business reported that the biggest driver of its improved performance was a 21 per cent growth in like-for-like store performance.
Sofology had 33 stores at the end of 2015, with the total bolstered by recent openings in Preston, Enfield, Dundee and Cannock.
The company also posted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of £3.8m, which excludes exceptional costs of £0.9m following the losses in 2014 resulting from the brand repositioning.
CSL rebranded to Sofaworks in December 2013 and changed its name again to Sofology in February 2016. The change from Sofaworks to Sofology followed a ruling by the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court that the Sofaworks name infringed DFS's Sofa Workshop brand.
Jason Tyldesley, chief executive of Sofology, said: "We are thrilled to have successfully delivered the most transformational, customer-focussed strategy in a market where the customer usually comes second. We have reinvented the retail experience, placed service and honesty at the core of our business and have grown like-for-like sales by 21 per cent in 2015.
"Our team and culture have beaten some amazing challenges in the past two years. The transformational impact of removing commission, implementing everyday low prices and the loss of the trademark dispute, resulting in our name change to Sofology (from Sofaworks), created significant headwinds and the 2014 losses but we have come out trading stronger than ever.
"We have stayed true to our values to be committed, caring, trusted, progressive, exceptional and fun to achieve 40 per cent sales growth and recover EBITDA to £3.8m.It really shows the customer appetite for an honest retailer with a will to help them to feel at home on a sofa they love.
"Double-digit growth has continued in 2016 and will be further fuelled by the rollout out of our unique technology-driven customer journey."