The underwear and swimwear supplier Lascana continued its sales growth in the 2022/23 financial year and broke the sales barrier of half a billion euros. The company, which celebrated its 20th anniversary last year, can thus celebrate twice.
“We are very happy that we managed to break the half-billion mark for our anniversary,” said Lascana Managing Director Jens Fehnders. “It paid off that we significantly increased marketing expenses due to our brand anniversary and hired a great brand ambassador in Victoria Swarovski.”
Lascana breaks the 500 million euro mark
Lascana increased sales by 18 percent year-on-year to EUR 515 million, continuing double-digit sales growth for the eighth year in a row. The increase in sales was particularly strong in the swimwear segment. There, the company, which belongs to the Hamburg trading and services group Otto Group, was able to record growth of 36 percent to 157 million euros compared to the previous year. In the area of clothing and beachwear, Lascana achieved a year-on-year increase in sales of 18 percent to 168 million euros and in lingerie an increase of 11 percent to 137 million euros.
In 2022, Lascana relied on “further corona pent-up demand” for swimwear, according to Fehnders. The late summer in July and August then helped, as the company used the swimwear as a year-round product and was therefore still able to offer sufficient goods in the later summer months. “In July and August, we were one of the very few suppliers to still have excellently sorted swimwear on offer on all channels and were able to track goods everywhere. In doing so, we were largely able to dispense with price reductions and often achieve the full margin,” says Fehnders.
Broken down according to the individual sales channels, Lascana was able to achieve a significant increase in sales, particularly with its own online shop. This was increased by almost 70 percent compared to the previous year – half from sales from new customers and half from higher sales from regular customers. But Lascana was also able to achieve growth in sales of 25 percent in the marketplaces with partners such as Zalando, About You and Limango.
In brick-and-mortar retail, sales with the Lascana stores increased by 26 percent compared to the previous year. A sales increase of 54 percent was achieved in the more than 1000 shop-in-shop areas at retail partners.
“We are very satisfied that we are back on track after the Corona slump and that in many branches we are already above the level of 2019, the year before Corona,” explains Managing Director Olaf Koopmann. “In particular, our new stores, which we tested in Lübeck and Bochum with modern shopfitting and smaller areas of around 100 square meters, are exceeding our expectations.”
Lascana is already opening the next store in June. In addition to underwear and swimwear, products from the fashion and shoe sectors are to be offered for the first time on Cologne’s Hohe Strasse.
In the US, Lascana’s largest overseas market, total sales rose 5 percent to $80 million. The company’s own online shop in the USA achieved an increase in revenue of almost 20 percent. “Despite the difficult market conditions, we have managed to continue to grow with our own web shop, in contrast to many of our fashion competitors. In the cooperation with Victoria’s Secret, we are represented for the first time with our beach fashion as one of the few international brands in the VS web shop, which sold excellently there. In the medium term, we will continue to keep our course towards the 100 million sales mark in terms of cumulative total sales in the USA,” said Marco Kebbe, who is responsible for the US market, among other things.
With regard to the current financial year, however, Lascana no longer expects double-digit sales growth. The aim is to reach the 500 million euro mark again. The reasons for this are the particularly strong previous years and less attention compared to the anniversary year with many events.