Dabs makes £1.2m loss

Back in profit, says MD

By Robert Blincoe • Get more from this author

Posted in Business, 5th February 2001 11:47 GMT

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Online IT retailer Dabs.com made a pretax loss of £1.2 million on sales of £86 million for the year ending 31 March 2000.

This is the first time the company has turned in a loss in thirteen years of trading. The sales were it's highest ever.

MD David Atherton said management accounts for the half year to 30 September 2000 are showing a pre-tax profit of £261,000. "This was all made in the second quarter, and indications are that the full year will be much more profitable. We enjoyed our first £10M month in January, with over £6M of that attributable to unassisted Web sales."

The size of the loss has been attributed partly to procedural problems within the company, which were picked up when Dabs took on PricewaterhouseCoopers as its auditors.

Discussing the firm's overall performance Atherton said: "We made a conscious decision to move the company from telephone mail order sales to Web sales, and therefore entered a frenzied market, competing with well-funded start-ups whose aim was market share, not profit. It should not be forgotten than many companies in the sector made much larger losses. Dabs.com now enjoys the highest volume in consumer IT online sales, but inevitably it cost us money to achieve this." ®