Fashion chain Boohoo has beaten the lockdown blues, seeing a year-on-year UK sales boost of 30% in the three months to 31 May, and expects to see a further 25% increase this year with the acquisition of the Oasis and Warehouse brands.
In the three months to end-May, revenue across the Boohoo Group rose 45% to £368 million. In the UK, sales were up 30% to £183 million, driven by its customers switching seamlessly from stores to online. Sales also increased by 65% in Europe – not including the UK figures – the UK and by 83% in the US.
The retailer put the rapid growth down to being agile enough to switch from ‘going out’ to ‘staying in’ clothing as lockdown began and being able to tempt its core consumer base to switch to online.
Building on this success, the group is also paying £5.25 million for the online businesses and associated IP of the Oasis and Warehouse brands from Hilco Capital, which acquired them out of administration in April.
Boohoo says that it will integrate Oasis and Warehouse into its own ecommerce platform “allowing both brands to benefit from the group’s insight, infrastructure, supply chain and operating model”.
According to The Financial Times, Oasis and Warehouse together generated online revenues of £46.8 million to the year ending February 2020 and Boohoo says it expects its total revenue growth to be around 25% this year.
The move adds to Boohoo’s raft of acquisitions – which also includes Karen Millen, which used to be part of the Oasis Warehouse group of companies until Boohoo bough it out of administration in 2019 – and in May it purchased the remaining 34% of Pretty Little Thing.
