Vancouver-based eyewear seller KITS Eyecare (TSX:KITS), which returned to profitability last quarter, had a banner Cyber Monday weekend sale, generating $700,000, the company announced this morning.
CEO Roger Hardy has not responded to requests for an interview.
The company's news release today noted year-over-year comparisons, such as that KITS' revenue during this year's Cyber Monday promotion was 44 per cent more than the promotion last year.
The company touted that repeat customers contributed 70 per cent of its revenue on Cyber Monday, and that eyeglasses sales led its revenue growth during the promotion, with more than 2,000 pairs of eyeglasses sold. Revenue from that product line, as opposed to contact lenses or other products, increased 66 per cent year-over-year, it said.
Sales in this year's promotion also saw higher year-over-year growth in Canada than in the U.S., with Canadian revenue increasing 82 per cent, "led by 300-per-cent year-over-year growth in Vancouver," KITS said.
The company did not provide the dates for its Cyber Monday promotion so it is possible that the sales include those on Black Friday and the following weekend.
The sales spike at KITS comes a few weeks after the company released earnings data showing that last quarter was its most profitable quarter since it went public in January 2021. It generated $480,000 in profit on $31.15 million in revenue in its third quarter, ended Sept. 30, it reported Nov. 8.
The company's sales show a pattern of seasonality given that the only other quarter in the company's history in which it turned a profit was the third quarter of 2022, when it made a $20,000 profit on $23.578 million in revenue.
In the first nine months of this year, KITS lost $1.724 million on $88.847 million in revenue. That is an improvement from losing $3.167 million on $65.4 million in revenue in the same nine months one year ago. The company's share price has nearly doubled so far this year.
"We look forward to continued momentum throughout the holiday season as we continue to deliver unbeatable value, selection and convenience for eyes everywhere," Hardy said in this morning's news release.
Hardy is likely best known for founding and being CEO at the Vancouver-based, Nasdaq-listed Coastal Contacts in 2014, when French lens giant Essilor bought the venture for $430 million.
Essilor then merged with Italian frame giant Luxottica to become Essilor Luxottica SA (ESLOY:US), and that venture hived off parts of Coastal Contacts to be in other divisions.
The division based in Vancouver is now known as Clearly, and it was headed by CEO Arnaud Bussiers until this summer. Bussiers posted on LinkedIn in June that he was leaving the company. BIV has sent multiple emails to Essilor Luxottica SA to ask who is now heading its Clearly division but has yet to get a response.
