After a stellar year in which the fast fashion etailer reported over £1.7bn in sales, and acquired six well-known brands, Boohoo has unveiled plans to keep its momentum going.

  • Boohoo targets 30% sustainable or recycled materials across group by spring/summer 2022
  • Co-founder Carol Kane explains why creating a digital department store is an “exciting opportunity”
  • Boohoo boss John Lyttle says more acquisitions could be on the cards

Boohoo Karen Millen Coast store

Yet, despite the financial success, 2020 was also a turbulent year for the retailer following allegations of modern slavery against its Leicester factories. In response to these allegations, Boohoo has laid out plans to leverage its success to build back better in terms of its supply chain and on sustainability issues. 

The retailer has also been busy in the M&A market and now has total of 13 brands under its group umbrella. With this expanded stable of brands, co-founder Carol Kane says the fast-fashion giant wants to “clothe the world”. 

Digital department store

Acquired in January, Boohoo has big plans for Debenhams.com, which relaunched on April 12 with Boohoo’s own brands on its site.

Kane is excited that the acquisition will allow Boohoo to foray into new categories including beauty, homewares and sport. “Debenhams provides a digital department store experience and it’s such an exciting opportunity for us as a team,” she says.

“Introducing the new categories into the group and expanding outside of fashion will contribute to the future growth of the group and broaden our target audience.”

Since the acquisition, Boohoo have been busy restructuring the Debenhams website to create a one-stop shop for all its brands and categories, as well as third-party brands.

The group began onboarding its own in-house brands immediately, followed by Debenhams brands such as Mantaray and Red Herring.

It has since begun adding third-party brands to the site, building on a week-by-week basis, starting with beauty - with fashion brands due to be added in mid-June.

“It’s the integration and back of house stuff that’s happening now and we’ve got a plan that rolls out through the summer - in time for peak where you’ll see a strong debenhams.com with the full beauty ranges, build up own-brands, our brands and the third party ones - not just the ones Debenhams had previously, but we’ve been having conversations to bring more onsite and those have been very positive so far,” says Lyttle.

If all goes to plan, Boohoo also has plans to take Debenhams international - using its broad range of products to appeal to a wider audience.

Sustainability upfront

Boohoo released its first-ever sustainability plan earlier this year and has signed up to initiatives including the BRC’s climate action roadmap, and WRAP’s Textiles 2030, in a bid to overhaul the way it produces clothes.

While longer-term commitments include resale and recycle programmes for customers, and creating recycled and recyclable packaging, Boohoo has begun to take steps towards a more sustainable future.

On a brand level, Boohoo has just begun to roll out “ready for the future” labels on all its garments that are made with sustainable, recycled or organic materials - starting with its BoohooMan label.

“There’s no reason for BoohooMan to be first - it was just the fastest brand to get things done,” explains Lyttle. “BoohooMan is out there first, it will have 20% of its ranges sustainable or recyclable or organic by autumn/winter, but the rest of the brands are following just weeks and months behind. 

“For next spring and summer, for all our brands, we’ve got a target of 30% of all of the ranges being sustainable.” 

Boohoo’s sustainability team has begun working with its buying teams on sourcing more sustainable fabrics.

Group head of sustainability Rosie Howells adds: “NastyGal is doing really interesting work on vintage fabrics – working with suppliers who sort through consumer waste and repurpose it into new garments. Karen Millen has also been doing some great work with surplus fabric, so they will leverage it up in different ways.” 

nasty gal

Agenda for Change 

After the allegations of modern slavery in some of its factories in Leicester last year, the retailer launched the Levitt review into its supply chain practices. 

Subsequently, Boohoo set out what it called its ‘Agenda for Change’, aimed at ensuring full ethical compliance across its supply chain.

Just over six months on, Boohoo said it has implemented 20 out of the 34 key projects identified, with a view to implementing all suggestions in the review by the end of September 2021.

In March, Boohoo published its full UK supplier list, and also aided its suppliers in bringing their cut, make and trim units in-house – negating the need for sub-contracting, which Levitt identified as a key issue.

Each UK-based supplier on the list has been audited at least twice, with any non-compliant supplier removed. The retailer aims to do the same with its international suppliers over the next six months.

To ensure that no ethical issues arise in future, Boohoo is also in the midst of implementing a purchasing app so its buyers will have full visibility of suppliers’ capacity restraints.

Despite the issues, Boohoo has remained committed to manufacturing in Leicester and has founded the Garment Worker’s Trust in a bid to help the local community.

It is also set to open a model factory later this year, run on 100% renewable energy, and showcasing supply chain best practices to local businesses. 

Sir Brian Leveson, who has been appointed by the group to oversee all changes, says he has “no doubt about the determination of all at Boohoo to address the issues in respect of which it has been criticised and both to promote and embed a new way of working.”

Building up brands

Boohoo has acquired six new brands in the past year after various competitors fell into administration - broadening its appeal and target market in each instance.

The group has developed a reputation for relaunching its acquisitions in record time, creating new ranges, building on the brand identity, and eventually taking them global.

“After acquiring a brand, our first job is to build up the website, the range and integrate all of that into the warehouse,” explains Kane.

“The next stage is building out the brand DNA - a full communication strategy and investing in marketing. While all this is going on, the buying and trading teams are already working on what’s next, extending the ranges into new categories and maximising the growth of the categories that are performing well. 

“Once we have traction, we’re then looking to the future and seeing what each brand does next and what is their overseas growth strategy.”

Its latest acquisitions - Dorothy Perkins, Wallis and Burton - are all at the very start of this journey and making the transition into pureplay businesses.

Meanwhile, its older acquisitions are beginning to add new ranges and categories. Karen Millen now has over 5,000 products, having added loungewear, jewellery and lingerie to its range, and has launched in the US. 

PrettyLittleThing Olivia Culpo

Olivia Culpo models PrettyLittleThing

International is increasingly becoming a focus for the group with original brands like Boohoo and PrettyLittleThing. It recorded sales of £600m in the financial year across the whole group in the US, a 65% year-on-year increase. 

Lyttle says building on these successes in the US will be the main focus for the group this year, as well as growing sales in Europe.

When asked if new acquisitions were also on the cards, Lyttle was coy.

“At the moment we’ve got a lot on with the brands, the warehouses and our new London office so we really want to get those to the best start, but we did raise just under £200m last the year with a view for acquisitions and we have got some money to spend,” he says.

“But if the right acquisition comes up - whether that’s at home or in the US or Europe [we could buy it].”

Investing in people

As Boohoo targets new areas of growth and looks to overhaul its business, the retailer has appointed a number of new roles including chief people officer, head of sustainability, and head of responsible sourcing among others.

Boss John Lyttle is excited to keep growing the business and says that these new hires will dictate how the business operates in future.

“Andrew [Reaney], who joined us last year to look after our responsible sourcing and compliance - he’s clearly well experienced and has added huge value to us already,” he says.

“As we recruit a larger sourcing and compliance team - thats gone from a headcount of 30 to almost 150, and equally as we open up offices overseas - he’ll be in charge.

“There’s also Siobhan [Forey] who joined us from Arcadia as our first chief people officer - with the group growing at the rate we are, we’re creating hundreds of jobs, having someone of that seniority to help us on our people programme is fantastic.

Mitch Hughes

Mitch Hughes

“And we’ve also got Mitch [Hughes] who was the MD of Topman, who has joined us as MD of Dorothy Perkins, Wallis and Burton.

“We’ve grown a lot, we’ve acquired a lot of brands, and we’re making sure we’ve got the right teams to support that,” he concludes.

Boohoo has continued its growth trajectory in spite of the dent in its reputation last year. With its Agenda for Change underway, and a new sustainability plan being put into action, the group looks set to go from strength to strength.