Appear and the footwear market is growing over the last ten years in the UK. Annual turnover of every retailer in is around L60 Billion. The trend is going upwards, and it is accounting for a 7-10% increase every year. Big players like “Marks & Spencer”, “Debenhams”, “Next”, “New Look”, “House of Fraser”, “Sports Direct”, “Clarks” were dominating this market but not anymore. They lose their position each year because of high ground sq. ft. rent, increase of staff salaries, not optimized sales strategy, very high overhead, running cost of each brick and mortar store. Most of these big chains are public companies that have their shares traded on FTSE stock exchange with big Net Worth. Investors require high returns, and if the company is not providing these returns, they withdraw their money and invest in other net worth stock. Therefore appear, and footwear PLC that has a brick and mortar business became very sensitive and fragile to new trends in the industry.
The trend is straightforward in the UK and Europe – more and more people shop online. For instance, UK online sales account for 70% of every transaction, and they grow each year. In the future people will stop visiting malls, supermarkets, or physical shops in general and will prefer online purchase with free same-day delivery to their doorstep. Also, these services offer free return without hassle if goods not fit. Small online companies that compete with existing giants are in a very good position right now. These companies have meager costs of administrative expenses, no store/staff cost, and no sky-rocket rent on high-street.
A clear example is “House of Fraser” creditor’s issues and going into Administration, “New Look” 10% of stores closure to restructure their business and offload non-profitable stores. “House of Fraser” Net Worth shrank to L80M, and in 2018 it was sold to Sports Direct. In this shifting market, cloth retailers experience a red warning sign and try to survive and keep afloat. Only one strategical decision is right here: entirely go online.
Such opportunity was used by “Sidemen Clothing,” – a small UK retail company based in Amelia House, Crescent Road, Worthing with BARN Vikram Singh, BRADLEY Joshua, BROWN Tobit, LEWIS Harry, MINTER Simon, OLATUNJI Olajide and PAYNE Ethan as main control parties. They started their business in 2014, but active promotion it via internet and social media began in 2017 only. They have 250K monthly visitors to their website, 500K followers on Twitter, 1M on Instagram, and 5M YouTube subscribers.
According to the details of business information provider CHECK LTD their Net Worth was L750K in 2017, and total asset of the company was L1.2M, total liability L400k and cash in the bank L900K.
Their target selling audiences are teenagers and youth between 7-25 years. People who actively use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and play console games: GTA, FORZA, Portal 2, Call of Duty and prefer fun lifestyle, luxury cars, and entertainment. Their top YouTube video about “Tinder” has 30M views just in 3 months. Love, relationships, and dating play a crucial role in their contact with teenagers audience. Mixing this with fun and entertainment roleplay gives “Sidemen Clothing” sub-consciousness access to a young mind and their wallet. Nowadays, teenagers need emotions, fun, something behind clothes to trigger their purchase. Today’s brand’s net worth is not measured in the number of store locations, staff number, or big TV advertisement. Modern Brand Net Worth is within social media emotions, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube fun, and entertainment.