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Dan190...niece 39 running a succesful family business (trophies & tanning) in middle America. Hard to get a national newspaper there, no perception of recycling, majority of Tennessee folk never leave the state & her English teacher years ago asked her what language they spoke in England. No perception of exporting US clothing jobs to China or abroad. Hope BooHoo can exploit middle- America when ready.
Just chided my niece in Tennessee, USA for posting on Facebook that she had just had delivered 57 items from Shein humourously asking for help from her friends to destroy her credit card. I asked her to try BooHoo as I'm a shareholder but she has replied...."There is a significant price difference between the two!" Does anyone else have comparable pricing info on similar products for these two competitors in the USA as bearing in mind the situation in Europe it has set a little alarm bell ringing in my head?
BH obviously trying to reverse bad PR with Kirsty appointment & show they are now acting responsibly in all/most areas but there is now more competition but key for me are Q4 2022 results when we will know if all "brands" have repositioned & differentiated themselves well enough to capture new target market. Suspect many of us are locked in long term. A dividend would help us but have been caught before by a new share issue for capital investment depressing share price further so could be "squeaky bum time" for many of us. Watch out for the media highlighting younger family members' ostentatious lifestyle in 2022.
With my wife locked at £3.72 & me at £3.02 I looked at the dictionary definition of "BooHoo". Apparently it's an intransitive verb meaning "To weep loudly and with sobs". I should have considered this when I topped up on Tuesday at £2.61!.......enough said.
Good to read an intelligent, precised resume from Pmoran 1969. Great time to invest for new entrants or those with spare cash. Have to disagree with Kallumama re: "London Vanity Project". When you need to get so many talented designers quickly for so many brands & new product ranges you have to go to Cobbett's "The Great Wen" & fish where the fishes are!
Solid general presentation but profits not keeping up with sales growth, contribution from 4 latest brands minimal & will take time to stoke up, Debs customer brand loyalty not a given so much uncertainty, long term prospects potentially good but suspect short term gains a thing of the past & for many their investment is locked in for the next 12 months.
Anticipating sales growth will be up with strong double figure growth but % PBT to be down as discounted sales on broken size ranges on recent "tired brand" acquisitions yield little re: margin growth (happy to be proved wrong). Favourable BH PR being released at right time to drive modest share price growth. Expect to hold till fruit of new marketing groups yield fruit in Q4 2022. Time to top up as a better punt than Lottery or flash, vulgar, expensive set of wheels being a depreciating asset.
I'm caught in a unusual situation....locked into BooHoo at £3.02 average price & wanting to sell two houses to buy more BH but with bad tenants one waiting on social housing list & "vulnerable"& the other with 6 extra mouths to feed since start of lease. Council won't rehouse either tenant with low social housing stock, knowing the private sector can't get re-possession till expensive legal action & repossession order undertaken so have no liquidity right now. Don't believe Boohoo's new acquisitions will yield real growth till 3rd quarter 2022 (if successful) so would buy c.£2.30 & be prepared for 6-8 month medium haul wait. There's more competition on line now re: style, attractive pricing, better photography & competitive websites and good brand building takes time. Still optimistic medium term but short term big gains on BooHoo suspect a bit thin on the ground right now.
Memory dims but Frank Dimech (MD), Paddy Emmerson (FD) & Sue Chidler (MM) still fresh in memory. Pre-Brussels senseless HO move & Falkirk quality production period.
Appreciate all the comments following my earlier posting which I found illuminating & helped dispense a little hope. Wrangler no longer make my jeanswear personally in Falkirk so as an 18.5 stones ex no 8 have now reached "fat bastard status" so my "skinny fit" days are well & truly over.
Always interested in peoples' opinions but the majority look at "Macro" rather than "Micro" detail when forecasting BH's future performance. Marketing" for me is the "central business discipline" & involves all disciplines. BH seems to be managing most disciplines well (legal, distribution, production, PR, promotion, design etc) but the jury is out on building back the tired "brands" recently bought in the last part of their "product life cycle". A "Brand" classically has loyal consumers, a clear postioning, commands a "price premium" & has a distinctive USP. Whereas selling broken size ranges on new, short term, less than impressive websites might contribute to cash flow & supply some more consumers via websites....long term the individual, recently-formed, marketing departments for Debs, Dorothy Perkins, Wallis, Burtons etc need to hit the ground running with distinctive positioning & offerings clearly targetted at a range of different consumers. "Pile it high, sell it cheap" has worked in the past in many markets (Tesco, Wilko even BooHoo) but rebuilding tired brands with a heritage & pedigree is a tough ask. We won'k know for another 12 months if the new "old brands" are a springboard to extra growth or a millstone. Get me back to £3.02 BooHoo & I'll decide then whether to stay on the roller coaster or bail out!
September results on recently-bought brands too soon to see how new teams for Burtons, Debenhams, Dorothy Perkins etc are bedding in but will take time to see if they can build back loyalty of key BC1 upmarket consumers. Certainly antics of wider Boohoo "bling" family don't reflect BC1 consumer & their aspirations/lifestyle. Want Boohoo to do well as heavily invested but am nervous. Some of photography & backgrounds on Burtons website on black & white products for example are poorly shot with stitching details not able to be picked out & bearing in mind the photos are "the silent salesman" it has to sell off the page. Let's hope the marketing teams get on board quickly & effectively!
For the record, Wrangler didn't sell vast quantities of jeanswear through Debenhams in the 1990s. Wranglers were seen as a tough, masculine brand...not trendy & certainly not aimed at Debenhams's customers. Burtons was one of our biggest customers & we were connected to every retail outlet with an immediate stock replenishment system that was connected to the factory in Scotland. Our 2nd biggest customer was Matalan who sold Texas regular jeans way below the higher RSP that Debs & jeaneries were trying to get which caused us problems. Selling "2nds" at discounted prices in factory outlets above WSP improved net margins & Wrangler was 2nd in market after Levi. Womens' volumes went sky high when we let sizes out a bit & promoted with other brands; a woman who wants s. 12 won't go to size 14 but will go for another brand so making all sizes more generous made sense to keep consumer. Never listen to barrow boys who don't know the difference between "there & their (possessive)".... "your (possessive) & you're (you are)", bad punctuation & grammar as they tend to be suppliers of raw materials rather than real businessmen/ marketers who have had to be involved with the total marketing mix.
Debenhams was built on BC1 more upmarket, older women enjoying the in-store, tactile experience of trying things on. Mail order in the days of Wolfson targetted C1C2Ds with choice & easy payments over time. Am not convinced the new online Debenhams will attract lapsed & dwindling upmarket BC1 shoppers and younger C1C2s are spoilt for choice...Shein being one where the photography & varying backgrounds are superior in visual impact & hence "impulse purchase" to Boohoo's. Have bought a few BH products at a price but garments & shoes look despecified & not quality. Am heavily exposed at £3.02 so with tired, undifferentiated brands like Burton & Wallis unlikely to do anything am pinning my faith for increased sales in short term on new customers, a quicker supply chain than competitors, Kumani & family staying out of trouble & keeping a low profile & new marketers attempting to differentiate their "brands" clearly but I am nervous & no longer so confident for the immediate future. Hope I'm wrong!
Disppointed at lack of movement in share price as locked in at £3.02 average price but got greedy, got talked up & didn't allow for Shein & others in calculations although did realise success with online, historically more upmarket BC1 36-55 markets not a gimmee. Breedon Group PLC at +29% since Feb 2021 has been a solid investment but with few shares trading BH looks a medium term hold with not too much movement in short to medium term.
Will be interested to see what "core business"(less Debs, non-clothing areas, Burtons, Wallis & Dot Perkins) were up by. European market not looking good so although have been loyal to BH am planning to sell between £3.75 - £4.00 & invest in Breedon Group PLC which has returned +20% growth over last 6 months. Building & road building sectors, which use aggregates, reasonably buoyant at moment, less competitive & offering solid double digit growth.
"Brands" have been under attack since the 1960s & I have my doubts, as a retired marketer, whether several of Boohoo's mature brands aimed at older middle England-type consumers can be grown significantly online without physically seeing, touching & trying on the garment where sizing can be variable. Karen Millen (b.1981), Oasis (1991), Coast 1996), Dorothy Perkins (1909), Wallis (1923), Burton (1903) & Debenhams (late 18th/early 19th Century) stand a chance of commanding a price premium when seen & handled & assessed n a tactile way. Online is fine for a young "brand" sold on "look" & "price" but older consumers want to see the finish, the materials used , the weight of the material on them not a stick-thin model and with the loss of their own retail shops & "concessions" I expect sales to be down so growth will have to come from wider distribution of Boohoo's existing range in younger countries, extending the product range, larger sizes, new product areas, etc. I will probably hold on till £3.75 then cash in & wait to buy back if the new BH relaunch of tired old brands is in reality a success.
Good accountants can normally spell "dumber"...."a lot"..."called"...."hippo"....etc but I'm glad that the 1944 Butler Education Act gave genuine working class ****neys from the East End a chance to have a decent education so now we can all compete & be less dependent on the nanny State.
Disppointing this morning but topped up at just over £3.17 so average price of holdings still only £3.02. Suspect lack of Debenhams in-store feel & trying on clothes experience at point of purchase will gradually erode loyal, older consumers & not impressed by some of photography on website (white products v white background)....shoe size range not always in ascending order & other mistakes so will watch closely & might cash out above £3.50 as getting good additional marketing teams relevant to wider age profile takes time.
PP1 is still employed by BooHoo as one of their social media champions or influencers but with the market static, BooHoo's relaunching of tired brands a medium to long term project, imminent results not likely to shock & her 4000th posting under her belt is taking her well-earned rest. She will be back...just can't understand why she's never going to sell her stock unless she has share options as part of her employment package with BH!