Discount health and beauty retailer Savers has seen its profit jump after shedding almost 300 jobs amid “another tough year for retail”, according to newly-filed documents.
The London-headquartered company, which part of the same group that owns Superdrug, saw its average employees per month drop to 5,034 in 2023, down from 5,304 in 2022 – despite opening nine new stores during the period.
Savers’ revenue increased to £754m throughout the year, up from £672m in 2022, while its pre-tax profit increased from £47m to just over £61m.
The retailer said it had benefited from increased demand for low-cost health and beauty products.
As well as new stores, Savers also opened a new distribution facility one of of its existing North East sites, which it said would “support future growth by bringing back into operation an asset that was previously sub-let”.
‘Another tough year’ for Savers
In a statement published to Companies House, Savers said: “2023 was another tough year for the retail environment with sustained higher interest rates and persistently high inflation, squeezing customers’ disposable income.
“The cost-of-living crisis was prevalent throughout the year meaning customers shopped around as they became more price sensitive.
“Total footfall across the UK was down on 2022, as measured by the British Retail Consortium, although the health and beauty sector was one of the few market groups to see retail sales growth year on year.
“Government driven decisions on areas like National Minimum Wage has compounded wage inflation and continues to put pressure on operating margins for retailers. General inflation also continues to put pressure on operating costs across businesses.
“The company continues to focus on providing competitively priced high quality brand name products across the health, home and beauty categories.
“Focusing on these product areas provides the company with significant range authority to accompany its everyday low-price position.
“During the period the company’s transactional website continued to grow, supported by an expansion of the range of products, plus increased awareness.
“The company also continued to open new stores across the UK, increasing the company’s presence into more geographical markets, resulting in a trading estate at the end of the period of 519 stores.”