Struggling British online clothes retailer Boohoo (BOOH.L) said this year’s installation of its first U.S. distribution center may improve its fortunes by reducing delivery times to American shoppers.
Boohoo’s largest overseas market, the U.S., receives orders chosen and packed in the U.K. and shipped by plane in eight to 10 days.
“Once we’re up and running in the U.S., 95% of the U.S. we will cover in three days,” Boohoo CEO John Lyttle told Reuters.
“It’s a complete gamechanger for us,” he remarked.
Boohoo’s most popular U.S. brand, PrettyLittleThing, will launch first at the Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania warehouse in the late northern hemisphere summer.
In late spring and early summer 2024, Boohoo’s other brands will join a second brand before Christmas.
Boohoo sold $400 million in the U.S. in 2022/23.
“We’ve got lots of opportunity there,” Lyttle added.
After profit fell in 2022/23 due to a cost-of-living crisis and shoppers returning to physical stores post-pandemic, Boohoo anticipated a better result in its next financial year.
Boohoo shares rose 9% in late morning trade, reducing year-to-date losses to 47%.
Boohoo forecasts first-half sales to dip 10% to 15% before recovering in the second half.
“We see that growth coming back towards the end of this summer as we get into the first normalised trading period in (over) three years,” Lyttle added.
He stated that 2020 and 2021 were COVID years, with sales skewed to athletic gear, while 2022 was occasion wear with pent-up demand for weddings.
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