Warpaint London says Q1 is strong, UK and US ops are growing

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Apr 20, 2021

Cosmetics specialist Warpaint London, the listed company that’s no relation to men’s make-up firm War Paint, said Tuesday that Q1 trading has continued the strength it saw in the second half of last year.

The owner of the W7 and Technic brands is a major supplier to supermarkets and other value-focused retailers. And despite the first three months of the year being impacted by lockdowns in many parts of the world, its sales for the period were ahead of the same quarter in 2020.

Given that colour cosmetics are the key part of its offer and that make-up has been shunned by many consumers during lockdown, that's an impressive result. It's made even more impressive by the fact that the first three months of 2020 included a large period when the pandemic wasn't having an impact.

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Product gross margin has also improved in the first quarter of 2021 versus the same period in 2020.

Sales of the Group's W7 branded products through UK Tesco stores continued to perform well, with it to stock an additional 15 W7 product lines in over 600 Tesco Extra Stores and supermarkets from the end of May. And a “substantial” Christmas order has been placed by it for delivery later in the year.

Activities in the US “have been successfully refocused and restructured with the aim of increasing margin, reducing costs and building sales”.  After a successful trial with store group Five Below, W7 products are now being stocked in over 1,000 of its stores in the country.

It has also been focusing attention on driving online sales via its own websites and also launched Amazon FBA (Fulfilment by Amazon) in the UK and US. “The positive momentum in e-commerce sales achieved in 2020 has continued to accelerate in 2021 with a further launch onto Amazon EU planned to be implemented in the near future,” it said.