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Omg clowns
Cash is literal cash so take out the facilities
At Q3 cash was £100m plus £600m of facilities
Now cash is £530m plus facilities
So the actual cash balance is up £400m
The facilities at both updates were indrawn so just cash you can ask for but it’s a loan not your cash
Are they? Bit of a mixed bag I think
Nutrition has done below expectations
Beauty is a good number but I think needed to be higher to unpick the organic growth?
Nothing on SoftBank or chair
Ebitda margin lower than guidance again
This whole paragraph is waffle. I never said anything to say your point on the store rent was wrong
The point you said was “bigger store = bigger catchment area” which is nonsense and why you haven’t pushed back on it
Then you say you only go where you can see the figures but then say you’ll follow them to multi channel based on trust?
Well your figures haven’t adjusted for online returns (which will happen if you win new customers (or there’s no point being online) and 2) when you close half the stores and people can’t return there)
Also then you have the extra cost of doing online properly which Card has at £30m but this has 0 returns so have you adjusted for the figure you can see (cost of proper online) and then the extra fixed costs for returns processing?
No you haven’t
Shoe might seek twice as many shoes as Debenhams buy if they are 1/6 of price that’s not that great
Also Asos does have proprietary tech. It’s full of it TGR for a start. Also they own and built all the interfaces which is the hardest and value add bit
You see this by how much easier and faster Asos shopping is. Try it. You might get someone to talk to you rather than dressed in Primark and £7 shoes
What are you talking about customer marketing? It's not relevant for the below you're talking about returns
And for some reason the need for an abuse policy although it isn't a factor
The CLV is weighted as they know order value, rate of order and returns as a %.
These are all already known and factored into the model. It the very basis used to push back on the argument against the "unfair" advantage against the high street re business rates
Why on earth would the market leader make it proposition worse? And why are you bothered about returns if it was a one off exceptional which had nothing to do with abuse (CFO's words)
Matt also had to clear the loan with Barclays where he had a huge chunk of his shares as collatoral
So clearing this and the other loan I don't think we will have the £100m in cash (well he will as he got it in advance via the loan) so he's always had this cash it won't be "new" money to him
I've recently been reading "Billion Dollar Loser" it's about WeWork
Over the weekend I was reading the part about SoftBank and how they invested. Basically they did tonne and tonne of DD. The WeWork guys had never seen anything like it before and were nervous as it wasn't a pretty picture (WeWork was just hot air)
But the deal happened and why? Mayosha Son saw the "sparkle in the eye" and he says "his view in 5 mins is worth more than months of DD"
So I find this both comforting and worrying for a mix of reasons
Pro
- Ingenuity is performing a head and raised guidance (DD point)
- Ingenuity has done so many collabs with Softbank businesses it is crazy. It is clearly a keystone for a lot of Maya Sons "vision" (and his timeline is 100 years)
Con
- the deal maker who broght THG to SoftBank is rumoured to be leaving. We don't know if Matt has ever met Son (and from reading the book Son's decision on the "sparkle" is final
I hope we hear more tomorrow
Yeah agree the Japan point is nonsensical and my point wasn’t that they are a like my point was that it speaks to how management have been viewing things
It hasn’t been for a quarter or two but EU growth have been negative for a while but my point is that management have been saying “revenue impacted as we don’t have a great delivery proposition” and then spend shareholder money on websites to Japan fulfilled from?…..Sheffield!
Doing something over and over expecting a different outcome is Einsteins definition of stupidity is it not?
Asos profit warning is for a different reason. It’s not for slow delivery it’s for the reason that they can’t get stock into warehouses fast enough to then offer for sale. It’s a different issue
Asos is missing sales not as the customers doesn’t want to shop there as the delivery is bad but because Nike or whoever can’t get the product to them. And you see this as Asos had a great peak is US
Both have pros and cons. I’m not saying one is better than the other. My point is that boohoo’s problem is managements short sightedness and as shareholders you should be fuming!
And also my point on Asos was just to say how tough it is running multiple stock pools it wasn’t saying it was better
@dream you’re completely right but atm we don’t know
- how they will resolve it
- what the timeline will be to resolve it
- what the cost will be to resolve it
- how the US warehouse will be fulfilled
- what operational drag there will be as it will be manual abs operating at a low capacity to start with (you have to bleed stock to it)
- what the additional marketing spend will be to win back customers who go back to fashion nova etc (as quick delivery)
- what % of customers we will lose over next 18months as we wait for the warehouse
So you’re boiling this down to just putting a warehouse down and job done. But it’s not. There is a lot above that is very very difficult
For example look at the string of profit warnings Asos had when it tried to do its first overseas warehouses (absolute nightmare!)
And think of boohoo. You think they will pay the best (but most expensive) to help out? Or you think they will do what they just showed with their Japan website and get the cheapest, non-integrated and non-bespoke offering
Warehousing across continents is very hard and who on the board has this experience? Ermmm no one
When doesn’t Asos do free returns? For serial returners? But that’s irrelevant here as boohoo CFO said they don’t have any issue with returns abuse or people ordering multiple sizes
So the change in policy you’re talking about would have made 0 difference to December update as it was apparently all down to cancel Christmas events (even though Asos didn’t see the same issue)
So I don’t know why the point of asos’s abuse policy is raised here as it’s not a trend or issue seen as boohoo. Comparing the Asos policy for what boohoo sees ie people just changing their mind then the return policy is free
25% revenue growth is true but a share of wallet is only so far. You can’t compound grow a PLT customers pocket 25% annually. Also the “plan” you see from management (do you watch the presentations?) is about customer growth and market share this is why they show you the customer cohort charts to show what they see as the best route ie they increase and retain customers. Average AOV has been flat the last few years. Order frequency is a slight trend up but not 25% compounded
So even you do grow AOV by 5% and frequency you’re tapping out soon and have to get back to customer growth
Again “strategy” you’re not looking at the business and what is there. You’re giving answers from a textbook
Same point is the margin. Management have slashed margin guidance for short term (current and next year) so they aren’t looking to push it back up yet. They are saying the returns issue was one-off due to omnicron so why out in place a long term change in policy for a one off issue?
Boohoo do not have returns abusers. Said from the CEO at the Q 3 update. The Asos abuse policy is not relevant here
Yeah outsource isn’t a bad idea. As I say I’d go the ingenuity route and get it in 6 weeks
My point is until it’s done it’s not done
It ok saying “subcontract” it but if that’s not the route then it’s irrelevant
Until we know the plan there is no meaningful basis
Quicker the better for me
There’s nothing negative in my post
My answers are most bullish! Smash the market and have the best product and proposition.
Look at U.K. growth last quarter! Where boohoo has all these things it’s a winner by a mile
And these guys want to take away a key part of the proposition
People here really confuse who’s the bulls and who are bears. Why? As they aren’t really understanding
@dream so you think the market is moving such that the consumer will accept return fees?
Ok well when all the competition offer free returns do you really think that? All this modern tech, speed of delivery and the overall message that shopping online is more convenient and you think consumers (price conscious and young as the case of boohoo) will go yeah ok I’ll pay £5 a time to return a pair of jeans as I bought two sizes
In some cases that’s adding 20% to the product cost! It’s going one way and that’s free returns. As much as it hurts it’s a moat for boohoo and Asos as when they automate (Asos has) it hurts smaller competitors more
It’s like factory wages going up. It hurt boohoo but eventually you automate and guess what robots don’t want payrises and the smaller competitors get hurt more and more. You want free returns as it clips the wings of smaller competition
Boohoo has visions of being a global fashion business. You want market share. Keep free returns and take the market share. T4G noting “only 90%” you don’t want to lose 10% you want to be gaining 25% yoy!
I worked on Investment Banking and now I’m quasi PE
@T4G boohoo aren’t claiming to have an issue with serial returners. The CFO said at the last update “very little instances of people ordering multiple sizes and returning”
They say it’s not an issue. So as well as it being a disaster (this is a growth business not a cash saving insolvency - from the sale and leaseback comment I think you have boohoo mixed up - you want growth). Boohoo should be market leading and gaining ground
Not booting out customers and threatening others and also as the CFO says it’s not an issue it’s just something that’s being claimed here as I don’t think we’ve all listened to the update
You can’t offer worse than the market. You’re supposed to be market leader
It’s like speed of delivery. The market expectation is 1-3 days
You don’t offer that customers go elsewhere. You charge for returns when everyone else is free they go elsewhere
If you’re market leader - LEAD the market!
Rather than all the way off opinions how about some real data?
https://asos-12954-s3.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/files/1616/3231/1878/ASOS_FWI_2030_Programme4.pdf
Pg 19 look at how such a high % of customers will shop less if they can’t have ease of returns
23% would buy less if the return isn’t easy
30% buy more if the return is easy
Now do you think the younger and more price conscious boohoo shopper is the higher or lower end of the skew? Higher obvious
So yeah charging returns? Brilliant idea!
What next? Sale and leaseback of warehouse that you’re supposed to max out in 4 years! (Hadn’t punched the maths in the calculator before making that point I think)
Asos threatened to change it but in reality nothing happened. I remember the memes going round about how Asos was going to check your socoial media to see if you wore it
What rubbish
Boohoo “personalising returns” people will shop elsewhere. T4G it’s madness. What PLT sell so does misguided or missy empire
Shoppers will go elsewhere. As market leader you’re going to offer a second rate service?
I hope that’s not “strategy” or “change management” advice!
Boohoo is so good, the investment in delivery and service and the product so great that our proposition is about to get worse?