N Brown – Different parts of the business

N Brown (LSE:BWNG) trades through 11 brands, three of which are “Power Brands”: J D Williams, aimed at 45-60-year-old women; Simply Be, for fashionable size 12-32 women, and; Jacamo for menswear.  It is also building up the Ambrose Wilson for women 60 and over and hinting that this will become a Power Brand in the future.

The Power Brands sell mostly over the internet: for J D Williams 76% of sales are online, Simply Be 93%, Jacamo 93%.

J D Williams has increased sales over the last five years but declined recently – see table. In 2019, “JD Williams revenue was down 2.4% during the year due to the drag from migrated Fifty Plus customers, one of our legacy offline brands. Excluding Fifty Plus, JD Williams revenue increased 6.8%.” (Annual Report).

The small operation, J D Williams in the USA, has recently been closed (it was never successful).

Simply Be has raised its sales from only £90m in 2015 to £134m today.  In the year to 2 March 2019 it grew its revenue by 4.4% if we ignore the closing stores.

Jacamo has not raised it sales by as much as Simply Be (£55m in 2015 and £67m in 2019), but nevertheless is making progress.   Things look better for the online Jacamo offering than the table suggests because ignoring the stores which are closing soon, Jacamo product sales were up 3.9% in 2019.

Traditional segment

This segment has lost around one-fifth of its sales over the last five years as N Brown pulled back on marketing and support spend while focusing on Power Brands.

“Revenue in the Traditional segment decreased by 17.2% as the Group continued to increase its focus on its digital business and scaled back its unprofitable offline marketing and recruitment.” (2019 Annual Report)

The traditional segment typically attracts more mature customers who tend to prefer paper-based marketing such as catalogues and direct mail.  In the past these brands served the company well, but as the attractions of online selling grow the company is increasingly reluctant to invest in these and would prefer to migrate customers to the online offerings, either the Power Brands or the online versions of the Traditional Brands – but many customers are resistant.

The Traditional Brand the company is most pleased with is Ambrose Wilson aimed at women 60 and over. It increased online sales by 7.4% in 2019.  The directors have state

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