Pragnell nmawrwa5 pragnell mayfair showroom
Pragnell's Mayfair showroom.

Pragnell sales soar to £85 million as domestic business booms

Sales to domestic customers rose by 32% year on year to £66 million. Business with overseas visitors also increased, but from a much lower base, to £19 million.

The strength of relationships between Britain’s leading luxury watch and jewellery retailers local customers has been critical to navigate the post-Brexit landscape and the challenges of global travel being suspended during the pandemic.

Businesses in tourist hot spots like London, Edinburgh and York could once have relied on high spending overseas visitors to bolster sales to domestic customers, but had to rapidly replace lost income from holidaymakers once international travel was curtailed.

Chinese tourism is only now restarting and could take years to fully recover.

On top of that challenge is Rishi Sunak’s axing of instant VAT rebates for overseas customers, a perk still available 25 miles over the English Channel for foreign visitors (including us Brits) in France.

Pragnell pragnell turnover scaled

Stratford-Upon-Avon-based Pragnell used to generate around half its sales from overseas visitors up until 2019, but has replaced the majority of that turnover with domestic business in the years since the Brexit agreement was ratified at the end of that year, and the pandemic started months later.

Pragnell pragnell domestic v overseas turnover scaled

In its latest accounts, for the 12 months to the end of May 2022, turnover rose by 35% to £85.2 million.

Pragnell pragnell operating profit scaled

Sales to domestic customers rose by 32% year on year to £66 million.

Business with overseas visitors also increased, but from a much lower base, to £19 million.

Operating profit increased by 55% to £12.4 million, despite overheads rising by more than £2 million in the financial year, mainly due to higher wage costs.

Pragnell’s anchor brands across three stores in London, Leicester and Stratford-Upon-Avon are Rolex and Patek Philippe, which are sold alongside its own fine jewellery and rare gems.

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