Weird Fish and Auralis boss David Butler tells Retail Week that the brand is planning on opening another 10 stores in 2026, with the retailer on track to deliver another ‘record year’.
Butler says that Weird Fish will look to open another 10 stores this year, having opened 10 stores in 2025, which will take it into the “mid-50s” in terms of store count across the UK, before adding in concessions.
“With the concessions, you’re looking at between 80 and 90 physical locations where you can shop Weird Fish,” he adds. “We don’t ever intend to operate in big cities or big shopping malls.
“We’ve done all the work with Experian. We’ve looked at our own database, at where we get our online shoppers coming from, and then we try to overlay some of that information with what we get from our third-party partners. When you pull all of that together, it gives you a nice heat map of where we are in the country and where we think there are opportunities.”
Weird Fish has already opened new stores this year in Padstow and Taunton, and is looking at places like Hexham in Northumberland. The brand has also been investing in revamping existing stores, having opened a refurbished store at Junction 32 in Yorkshire earlier in the year.
Weird Fish also sells into the US through partners like Nordstrom and Macy’s, as well as through online avenues such as Amazon and Debenhams, but Butler says he’s not racing to open concessions or physical stores in the country.
“Nordstrom does very well for us, and we’ve expanded more into Amazon and with Debenhams over there. But the work we do in the US, we’ve refined it and optimised it to be as profitable as possible.
“At the minute, there are no plans to open stores or concessions in the US. If we’re going to do that, we’d need to see a bit more evidence of continued growth online. We’d also need our partners over there to be coming forward with ideas like that.”
Succession plans
Since last October, Butler has effectively been wearing two hats, being both the chief executive of Weird Fish and Auralis – the buy-and-build holding company created by the retailer’s former owner, Total Capital Partners.
With Butler spending more of his time now focusing on Auralis “working with investors, working with advisors and looking at different businesses to acquire,” he says he’d “be lying if I said I run Weird Fish 100% of the time now”.
He says he has a “good bunch of peers and directors that run the business really well day-to-day with a strategy that is completely clear and well-defined.
“We know exactly what we’re doing for the next three to four years,” he adds. “At Weird Fish last year was a record year. This year, touch wood, will be another record year. Despite all the noise, this year started really well.
“Depending on what Auralis buys, I suspect we’ll end up with a group function, where we’ll have a sort of divisional management structure, with individuals running each of the businesses.”
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