Kogan lays groundwork for digital growth

Online shopping retailer Kogan is increasing its technology investment after it recorded high sales growth across its digital platforms. 

Kogan reported a key driver in its high sales performance in its first half year 2022 results was an additional $1.4 million of website costs to build out new features, improve performance and increase customer capacity and marketplace seller activity.

Over the half Kogan Group Active Customers rose 9.4 percent to just over 4 million compared to the same time the year prior.

By the end of December Kogan.com had 3,314,000 active customers and 757,000 active customers on its New Zealand online retail brand, Mighty Ape.

The business reported it has been working "closely on leading edge projects with Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud" to deliver an open ecosystem technology platform.   

The brand intends to develop an ecommerce platform supporting end-to-end logistics, more third party innovation, and sales more channels.

Technology features the brand has been working on include AI-powered product discovery, automating behaviour marketing, flexible payment methods and consumer self-service.

The Kogan warehousing network also now contains 29 different sites and allows customers track their delivery in real-time once an order has left the warehouse, to when it is delivered.

Founder and CEO Ruslan Kogan said the company “have invested heavily on expanding product choice, value and speed of delivery” over the half.  

“Our team has continued to focus on innovative ways to further enhance the Kogan.com and Mighty Ape customer experience,” Kogan said.

“What you’re seeing right now is the building blocks for an even bigger and greater business, as we invest in building the best place for Aussie and Kiwi customers to get what they need.”

Gross Sales increased by 9.4 percent to $698 million and a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 46.9 percent since the same corresponding year.

Kogan reported the increase in gross sales was pushed forward by three things: Kogan Marketplace, its third-party merchant platform, which grew by 28.7 percent; Mighty Ape which grew to $95.6 million; and Kogan First membership subscriptions.  

Despite the high sales Kogan also reported a statutory profit loss of $11.9 million for the half and recorded its gross profit dropped 8.1 percent to $108.1 million put down to supply chain issues raising from Covid-19.