Retail in 2024
Using this as a thread to detail failing mega online retailers in 2024 (taking bets on if therealreal will make it to 2025)
9 Replies
MATCHES in the UK gets put into administration
https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/FRASERS-GROUP-PLC-9590226/news/UK-s-Frasers-puts-MATCHES-into-administration-46122887/
MarketScreener
UK's Frasers puts MATCHES into administration
British apparel and sportswear
retailer Frasers Group PLC said on Thursday it has put
online clothing platform MATCHES into administration, after
buying it last year for about 52 million pounds...
I saw an article on realreal in the wsj the other day
They're opening more small stores in wealthy neighborhoods as part of their turnaround effort
Fraser's own Matches? Wtf?
not a segment talked about much here, but Outdoor Voices shuttering all B&M https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/13/style/outdoor-voices-closing-stores.html
By Callie Holtermann and Madison Malone Kircher
The New York Times
Outdoor Voices to Close All Stores This Week
The athleisure retailer will go online only, according to employees who were surprised by the announcement.
honestly surprised they lasted this long, in terms of bourgie activewear they're outgunned by lululemon and alo
They just opened a store here a few months ago. All their stuff seemed pretty mid considering the price
Net-A-Porter (and mr porter?) rumored to be up for sale. From line sheet:
>The net-net on Net: The chatter this week was that Net-a-Porter—or YNAP, or whatever is left of it in the end—is close to a sale. First, I heard that both L Catterton and Bain Capital were still in the running to take the online luxury leader off the hands of Richemont, which should have never bought it in the first place. The L Catterton thing appears to be total B.S. The LVMH-linked private equity firm may have considered it early on in the process, but most of their fashion investments are stable businesses looking for the capital to scale, like Birkenstock, rather than distressed investments praying for vulture turnaround artistry. Bain, on the other hand, recently began raising a $4 billion “special situations fund,” created expressly to acquire distressed assets and the like, according to a report in Reuters. In the end, though, I’m hearing that the buyer might end up being a London-based investor—probably makes the most sense, given the specificity of the U.K. market (Net-a-Porter is also based there) and the unique circumstances (i.e., great brand, big customer base, messed-up business model, and tech issues that are going to take a long time to fix).
ctd:
>Meanwhile, among the retailers still standing, both Moda Operandi and Saks.com are out raising money right now. A reader also asked earlier this week if I thought Montreal-based Ssense, once rumored to be prepping for an I.P.O., could swoop in and steal some of the market share from Farfetch, Net-a-Porter, and Matches: They support young designers more than any other global multibrand retailer, but they also sell big luxury brands and buy deep. My guess is that Ssense won’t be going public anytime soon—even in Canada!—but I do know that the company is run pretty leanly and was profitable for many years. (In 2021, it raised money from Sequoia Capital at a $4.1 billion valuation.) For all of these businesses, a big challenge is keeping inventory levels in check.
A friend works in business continuity at YNAP and this rings true.
Evening Standard
Ted Baker calls in administrators in latest UK fashion collapse
A number of big names in fashion such as Matches and Farfetch have collapsed in recent months, while brands like Superdry have faced major difficulties