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· Posted on
February 21, 2024

Kathman-don't ya wish COVID was over?! The Aussie retailer flags tough times ahead

Kathmandu is the Aussie retailer known for its big stores... and even bigger puffer jackets.

What's the key learning?

  • Kathmandu has a had a pretty tough year, losing 13,000 trading days across all stores.
  • The retailer is hoping things will brighten up as we come out of lockdown, but projects further losses for the first-half of July 2022.
  • Seasonal risk is a term used for businesses that make a significant amount of their revenue in one season each year. Think ski resorts in winter, or ice cream stores in summer.

Background: Kathmandu is the Aussie retailer known for its big stores and even bigger puffer jackets. It also owns surf brand Rip Curl, and US hiking shoe brand Oboz.

What happened: Like a lot of retailers, Kathmandu has had a pretty tough year. Around the world, they lost 13,000 trading days in the 2020-21 financial year (adding up all the stores). 

What else: Unsurprisingly, the company saw some weak results for the 12 months ending July. And, it reckons things will only get worse for the first-half of July 2022. But the retailer hopes that as countries come out of lockdown, things will brighten up.

So what's the key learning?

💡Seasonal risk is a term used for businesses that make a significant amount of their revenue in one particular season of the year. Like ski resorts in winter, or ice cream stores in summer.

💡Puffer jackets are great for Winter...but they only get ya through one season. And being seasonal can create all sorts of problems, like warehousing and cash flow issues. And these are risks Kathmandu has faced from its inception in 1987, up until its first acquisition in 2018.

💡 Buying Oboz and Rip Curl meant Kathmandu suddenly had access to other global companies that already had a massive footprint across the globe. This helped diversify their product...as well as their geographic location. Bye-bye winter sales, hello 24/7 cash. Although, there's nothing like a global pandemic to foil your plans.

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