Gymshark plans new London, NYC stores, premium line in deal with Selfridges

Fast-growing activewear brand Gymshark has filed its accounts for FY23, with strong growth continuing. And it has also revealed some key expansion plans for this year.

They include its second permanent store in London’s Westfield Stratford; its first wholesale partnership “with the icon that is Selfridges” to sell its first premium range of clothing; its first-ever store in the US; and its intention to bring Gymshark to the Middle East — specifically Dubai.

First, let’s look at the numbers for the 12 months to the end of July last year.

Founder and company chief Ben Francis said it was a “really, really strong year” despite a difficult start to the period due to the cost-of-living crisis and other global events.

Gymshark Group Limited’s revenue rose around 15% from £484.5 million to £556.2 million, although the gross margin contracted to 60% from 65% a year earlier. Profit before tax was also down at £13.1 million from £27.8 million in the previous year. But EBITDA including exceptional items rose from £37.6 million to £40.4 million and excluding exceptional items it was up from £39.9 million to £45.3 million. The company said that EBITDA is now its “primary indicator” and this rose in line with sales growth. 

It added that orders increased by 13.1% following a 13.9% increase in the previous year, while units sold were up by 8.7% having been up 27.5% the year before. That larger increase is understandable in the year to July 2022 given the pronounced bounce-back from the pandemic in that period. In the latest year, international sales rose by a healthy 12.5%.

Gymshark also said its stock balance was cut by £25 million, with Francis adding that this meant “we can be much more agile as a business going forward”. And it improved its cash position by £50 million.

Beyond the financial year in question, it has also just seen its “biggest-ever Black Friday, which included the biggest single day in Gymshark’s history”.

Along with the results, Ben Francis released a video explaining the factors behind its success and sharing information about those future plans.

In fact, he said “2024 is going to be Gymshark’s biggest-ever year”.

London’s Regent Street store opened a little over 12 months ago and the CEO said that it has been “incredibly successful since day one. Because of that we see more of an opportunity in offline,” hence the Westfield Stratford decision. Francis clearly sees the appeal of opening at the UK’s busiest shopping centre that has over 44 million visitors every year. 

As for that move into a more upscale product offer, he said that 2024 will see the company launch its “highest-quality athleisure range so far”. The range will be called Everywear, presumably underlining the gym-to-street aspect of the offer. Francis explained that a more premium product is something the company’s community has long been asking for.

And that’s where Selfridges comes in because Francis also said he felt it was important to launch the product somewhere prestigious. It will be exclusive to the luxury department store retailer, although he didn’t say how long the exclusive period would be. 

Regardless, this is a big move on more than one level for the company whose products were previously only available via its own website and its own physical store. 

In terms of international growth, that US retail development we mentioned above will see the company opening a pop-up store in New York. 

The firm has tested the waters in the city before with a pop-up event on Mercer Street in SoHo back in 2017 that was very successful. And the brand has grown strongly in the US since then. The new pop-up store that’s being planned will be open for 12 months and will be “in the heart of Manhattan”.

Regarding Dubai, he said he’d visited the region and was blown away by the fitness scene there. The brand will be available online there as of this spring. And without giving any details he said “we’ve also set the wheels in motion for an incredible brand experience at the end of this year”.

And to conclude his presentation he referenced the Gymshark Lift community events that have been staged in Manchester and LA and said that the “biggest-ever Lift The City event” will take place in Miami later this month. More events will follow across the whole of the year.