Temple & Webster has surfed strong online homewares sales to a year of record profit, revenue, and customer growth, with Australians continuing to rethink and refurnish their homes amid ongoing lockdown restrictions.

“While we don’t take for granted how fortunate we are to be able to trade through lockdowns, we believe Covid has accelerated the shift from offline to online that was already in progress,” chief executive Mark Coulter said.

“[And] while the start of FY22 has been difficult for many Australians, we remain focused on strengthening our customer proposition, built around having the largest and best range of furniture and homewares, combined with inspirational content and a great customer service experience.”

This strategy seems to have paid off for Temple & Webster, which enjoyed revenue growth of 85 per cent to $326.3 million in FY21, active customer growth of 62 per cent to 778,000, and a net profit of $14 million – 165 per cent up on a normalised basis.

Revenue per active customer also increased 12 per cent, as customers get used to the idea of shopping for homewares online and becoming repeat customers.

During the year the business’ iOS and Android dedicated apps launched, and the business enjoyed a successful pilot of an ‘artificial intelligence interior design’ service based in Israel: one which Temple & Webster begun investing in some time ago and which hasn’t yet announced who the partner is.

And, into the new financial year, the online homewares giant has seen this pattern of growth continue, with lockdowns around the country fanning revenue growth of 49 per cent for the period between July 1 and August 27.