Mountain Warehouse ramps up new store openings amid record revenues

Mountain Warehouse is opening new stores every week in the run up to Christmas after revenue reached £371 million, up 22.6% in the year to the end of February 2023, the highest in the company’s 26-year history.

The group did still make a loss of £1.5 million due to soaring freight and energy costs, but it has rebounded strongly with record H1 sales of £171 million in the six months to the end of August 2023 and underlying profits of £6.7 million.

That was helped by the wash-out summer, selling 350,000 waterproof jackets in July and August alone. It has also just seen its “busiest Black Friday weekend ever”, with sales of more than £10 million.

It marks a significant recovery for a business, which was fighting for survival when the pandemic forced it to close all its stores and furlough its 3,500 workers.

The company now says it has “put the dark days of the pandemic behind it” by bouncing back into the black, with 50 more stores planned in 2024, including its first stores in Australia, having seen shoppers flock back to the high street.

Two new Mountain Warehouse stores opened last week, in Newark and Swindon, and the others due to open between now and Christmas include branches in Lincoln, Hexham, and Stratford upon Avon, as well as three more overseas.

The new Swindon store is a stone’s throw from the very first Mountain Warehouse, which opened in 1997, but is six times the size.

The company currently has 370 shops in eight countries and opened 35 new shops this year, including in Hereford, Lancaster, Cromer, Gloucester, Exeter, Bedford, Bristol, Northallerton, Cwmbran, Norwich and London’s Covent Garden, as well as one in Warsaw, Poland and two each in Canada and New Zealand.

Mountain Warehouse in Norwich

The new Norwich branch, which opened last month in the former TopShop, was the company’s “most successful new store opening ever”.

It forms part of a new strategy to open some much larger stores, including on retail parks, and as well as former branches of TopShop, Mountain Warehouse is also “negotiating to take over some ex-Wilko branches”.

Mark Neale, Founder of Mountain Warehouse, said:  “During COVID there was a belief that nobody was ever going to go to a store again, and their days were numbered, but that’s proved to be completely wide of the mark.

"Whilst our online business had a big boost during the pandemic and continues to go from strength to strength, our stores have bounced back with gusto showing that customers want to shop both channels.

“We are having our busiest Black Friday weekend ever, with sales of more than £10 million and more than a million people visiting our stores.

“The current cold snap may not be to everyone’s liking, but if you need outdoor clothing to keep you warm and dry this winter Mountain Warehouse has some great products at fantastic prices both in store and online.”

The new larger outlets are enabling Mountain Warehouse to stock a much wider product range, some of which were developed for the online business during the pandemic.

It is also allowing scope to include sections devoted to ski wear and to showcase the Animal lifestyle brand, which Mountain Warehouse acquired two years ago.

The revival has proved so successful that the group has recently opened three standalone Animal shops in Padstow and Bude in Cornwall, and in Abersoch in north Wales.

Neale added: “It has helped us weatherproof the business. That’s something we have taken big strides forward with in recent years, so that we have a strong business all year around.

“Acquiring Animal was another step on that journey and has helped us reach some new customers. The Animal brand is well loved and we’re reinventing it for a new generation with sustainability at its core.”