News English — Farfetch

Farfetch vs Boohoo Two pureplay online retailers (ok, Farfetch owns a few subsidiaries with physical stores and are moving towards a multi-channel set-up) compared. We have written about the Farfetch business model previously. Download our report here. Our view is that Farfetch has too many employees and should rationalise departments and its development base. At close to a third of revenue, Farfetch's salaries are going to weigh on the company for many years to come. The only hope is that they can grow into a $bn business before they run out of cash (they have a decent amount in the...

After a relatively long period of media speculation, Farfetch has finally filed an intention to list on NYSE (source). At the time of writing this blog there were no specifics on its pricing and the company is no doubt working the funding circuit hard to explore the level of interest and promote the pricing. While pricing is not known, there are a few other details that we know of. JD.com stepped in as an investor earlier in 2018 and have an option on about a third of the business. What is Farfetch? Farfetch is an aggregator platform for luxury fashion...

The answer is: An interest in the Chinese online market. In June 2016 Walmart acquired a 5.9% stake in JD.com, the Chinese ecommerce marketplace listed on Nasdaq since 2014. In January 2017 Walmart had upped its stake in JD.com to 12.1%. In October 2016 Asda (owned by Walmart) and JD.com announced a collaboration to bring 'British authentic merchandise' to the Chinese market. In June 2017 JD.com acquired a minority stake in Farfetch with the two companies announcing a collaboration in the Chinese market, bringing authentic luxury goods to Chinese customers.   Questions: What do luxury brands really think of Farfetch's...

Posted by Thomas Andersson, March 7, 2017. When looking at the UK fashion e-commerce landscape (excluding multi-channel retailers) it is interesting to note that the marketplace is divided by latitude as well as by consumer preferences. The value fashion sector led by Boohoo.com is primarily based in North England around Manchester whereas the mid-market fashion sector is spread out in middle-England. All of the luxury and high-end fashion e-commerce companies are based in London. More 'experimental' fashion e-commerce companies also tend to gravitate towards London, possibly due to its networking opportunities and existing start-up infrastructure. What can be learned from...

Our first reaction to Farfetch raising another $110million taking its total funding to $300million was - WHAAAAAT? The company is a retailer without stock and operate as an advanced affiliate network connecting buyers with stores & brands. It earns about 25-30% in commissions on the sales they generate which is much higher than standard affiliate schemes, where anything up to 10% is considered good, and would resemble more of a department store with concession shop-in-shops where up to 40% commission on sales is not unheard of. However, Racked (link below) reports that much of the $110million will be used to...