While the luxury goods market and e-commerce platforms positioned in this segment are facing a slowdown, Munich-based Mytheresa proved resilient in the 2023-24 financial year, which ended at the end of June. It achieved record sales, up almost 10%.
While other luxury digital platforms are filing for bankruptcy (Matches), being acquired (Farfetch by Coupang) or up for sale (Yoox Net-a-Porter), Germany’s Mytheresa is regaining momentum, particularly since the start of 2024.
Net sales at Mytheresa rose by 9.8% to 840.9 million euros in the 2023-2024 financial year ended June 30. This represents record sales for the NYSE-listed online retailer, which ships ready-to-wear, accessories, luxury lifestyle items and jewelry to over 130 countries.
Second-half recovery
While sales growth had been sluggish in the first half of the year, it picked up again (+13.8%) in the second. In the fourth quarter, sales rose by 9.7%. Mytheresa is thus faring better than the luxury goods industry, which is currently facing headwinds.
Mytheresa also announced “positive profitability in terms of adjusted operating income and adjusted net income, with 10.6 million euros and 7.7 million euros respectively”.
Profitability also improved significantly in the second half of the fiscal year. Its adjusted EBITDA margin reached 4.3% in the second half of 2023-24, compared with 1.7% in the first half.
Adjusted net income rose sharply in the fourth fiscal quarter to 4.5 million euros, compared with 1.1 million euros the previous year.
Admittedly, all is not perfect, with a gross profit margin of 45.7% in 2024 , slightly below the 49.6% in 2023.
Increased annual loss
The annual net loss has widened to 30.7 million euros, almost double that of the previous year (17 million euros). The trend is in the right direction, however, with the fourth-quarter loss “deflating” to 3.6 million euros, compared with 5.4 million euros in the last three months of the previous year…
As a result, shares plunged by over 6% before the market closed on September 9, in the wake of the earnings release.
Nevertheless, Michael Kliger, CEO of Mytheresa, and his teams were both “very satisfied” with the “results for fiscal 2024 as a whole” and with the “performance in the fourth quarter, as it enabled Mytheresa to continue its very positive momentum in the second half of fiscal 2024, with double-digit growth and profitability almost double that of the previous year”.
Many reasons for satisfaction
In more detail, Michael Kliger has several reasons for satisfaction.
The CEO mentioned “record AOV (average order value, which reached 703 euros), high customer satisfaction scores, strong growth in our Top Customer revenues and numerous extraordinary Top Customer activations in collaboration with brands”, thanks to which he believes Mytheresa has “strongly reaffirmed” its “position as the best digital platform for high-end luxury”.
Customer satisfaction is measured by the Net Promoter Score, which reached 83% in the fourth quarter.
The platform’s logistical efforts partly explain this good score. Mytheresa closed its “historic” warehouse in Heimstetten and moved this activity to Leipzig to “improve customer satisfaction and increase delivery efficiency”. And to underline the “successful ramp-up of operations at the Leipzig warehouse, with over 80% of all customer orders processed” by the end of July.
In an interview with Le Journal du Net on August 29, Gareth Locke, Mytheresa’s chief growth officer, also explains this customer satisfaction by the platform’s finely targeted strategy , “unique among luxurymulti-brand players ”.
Top 1% of luxury buyers
“At Mytheresa, we’ve been growing our sales for years because we have a unique model: we focus purely on luxury, not premium. We look for customers who regularly buy luxury. The audience we seek and target is the top 1% of luxury buyers with the highest purchasing power”, he emphasized.
It’s hardly surprising, then, that Mytheresa is particularly successful on the other side of the Atlantic, where this “VIP” profile is more prevalent, with sales up 25% over the year.
To stand out from the crowd, “Mytheresa doesn’t list every available product, but rather curates them”, a “bias that attracts luxury enthusiasts looking for something new”, explains Gareth Locke. In addition to its appeal to a selective target, this model is also virtuous in terms of profits, since “unlike others”, the German site “does not need to make excessive use of promotional offers to interest” its customers” and ‘sells essentially at full price’.
And margins are all the more juicy as “the selection of 250 brands” offered by Mytheresa “ focuses on luxury brands such as Bottega Veneta, Brunello Cucinelli, Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci, Loewe, Loro Piana, Moncler, Prada, Saint Laurent, The Row, Valentino…”.
A community of luxury enthusiasts
“Mytheresa creates a community for luxury enthusiasts. We create desirability throughdigital and physical experiences,” Michael Kliger also emphasized.
Last year’s “high-impactTop Customer events worldwide” included two-day experiences in Italy with Brunello Cucinelli at Lago d’Orta and with Dolce & Gabbana in Capri, and a yacht cruise in Nice, France, with Valentino. The platform has also launched or pre-launched exclusive capsule collections in collaboration with Valentino, Brunello Cucinelli, Bottega Veneta, Saint Laurent, Loewe, Gucci…
Another winning operation was the Pop Up Mytheresa x Flamingo Estate in East Hampton. In eight weeks, it attracted over 6,000 guests!
Confident in the future
Michael Kliger is confident in this deliberately upmarket strategy in a less buoyant climate for luxury goods, as shown by the first 2024 results of the sector’s giants.
As he told investors, he believes it is possible to win more market share in luxury online sales, by targeting “the big spenders who feel neglected by the other players ”.The executive did not, however, confirm a rumor that he was interested in buying the Yoox Net-a-Porter (YNAP) platform, which the Swiss group Richemont is seeking to divest.
For the fiscal year just started last July and ending June 30, 2025, Mytheresa forecasts GMV and net sales growth of between 7% and 13%, and an adjusted EBITDA margin of between 3% and 5%.
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Read also > Yoox Net-a-Porter (YNAP) stops selling in China
Featured Photo: © Mytheresa
