Fashion retailer and marketplace Asos sells fast fashion from over 850 brands. It was founded in London in 2000, originally as an acronym for ‘As Seen On Screen’ with the tagline ‘buy what you see on film and TV’ – the retailer initially sold imitations of famous onscreen items. Its primary target market is young adults, including its own-label women’s range launched in 2004 and men’s range in 2007. The retailer launched its independent boutique and vintage section Asos Marketplace in 2010 and now represents sellers from 800 labels worldwide. Asos operates a number of dedicated websites and ships to 196 countries from fulfilment centres in the UK, the US and Europe. It employs over 4,000 people across six locations. The retailer has a strong digital presence, implementing influencer marketing, an Instagram purchase function and its own app, which was downloaded 10 million times in 2018. In 2019, Asos announced a change to its returns policy in a bid to block “serial returners”.
As the Christmas reporting season comes to a close, a return to in-store shopping in the post-pandemic world, freezing temperatures and the impact of the cost-of-living crisis delivered a range of results for fashion retailers over the period.
As store shutters slammed down during lockdowns, some wrote off the likelihood of a bricks-and-mortar recovery. Now the same gloom has descended over pureplays. It was proven wrong then and it will be proved wrong now.
As soon as retailers’ Christmas updates started coming in, it was clear that something unexpected had happened – the festive season had been better than anticipated for many
Online fashion giant Asos has posted a fall in sales over the festive period but said it is making progress on its turnaround.
Troubled online fashion giant Asos faces the prospect of a shareholder rebellion at next month’s AGM.
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