Missguided’s chief digital officer Jonathan Wall said that New Look’s poor sales performances is down to its target customer shopping primarily online.
Speaking on a panel at Retail Week Live, Wall said: “My take [on New Look] is that fundamentally the shift has [happened] – 40% of fashion is bought online and New Look were in the middle of that.
“They are fundamentally a fashion retailer to young people and those customers have left the square footage of stores.
“They have had some specific issues with their ranges but they were fundamentally caught out by the customers’ move to online.”
The value fashion retailer has launched a company voluntary arrangement (CVA) to shutter 60 stores and axe nearly 1,000 jobs.
Wall said that despite New Look’s difficulties, there was still value for young fashion retailers like Missguided in having a bricks-and-mortar footprint.
“All data that we see is when we have a store the customers in the surrounding area spend twice as much with us in total,” said Wall.
Wall added that the although Missguided stores did not contribute significantly to the business’ bottom line, they were worth having in order to provide better exposure to the etailer’s core customer.
“For us it’s not about having hundreds of stores,” he said.
“Our customer is a 16 to mid-twenties girls who spends their time at shopping malls at the weekend.
“While we don’t want our stores to be loss-making, fundamentally we’re there because that’s where our customers are.”
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