Asos has partnered with Secret Sales to sell its excess stock at a discount.
The fast fashion retailer will use the market to deliver on its plans, outlined at the time of its full-year results in October, to right-size its equity portfolio.
Jag Weatherley, corporate transformation director at Asos, said: “We are delighted to offer Secret Sale customers access to Asos products for the first time. It was a huge effort from everyone involved to get this partnership up and running in a short amount of time. We look forward to seeing how we can develop our relationship with Secret Sales.”
In October, the retailer reported growing revenue of £3.9bn but a pre-tax loss of £31.9m in the year to 31 August 2022, and said its operations needed to become more efficient after years of high growth. It said it would write down between £100m and £130m worth of stock to cut costs and increase its logistics flexibility, while changing the way it holds stock. It has aimed to keep less inventory in its fulfillment centers through steps that include working with more brands on a ‘fulfillment partner’ basis, while also introducing more ways to clear products earlier in their lifecycle. This, it said, would reduce discounting and increase the proportion of full-price sales.
Asos will start selling through Secret Sales with up to 1,000 products from its own brands, including Asos Design, Topshop, Topman and Miss Selfridge. It then plans to refresh its inventory every two weeks while increasing the available selection.
The alliance initially starts in the UK, with all the selected discounted items no longer available on Asos, as products will be housed on secret sales. Asos will fulfill orders placed on mystery sales using its own infrastructure, from packaging to shipping.
Matt Purt, co-founder and chief commercial officer at Secret Sales, says: “Our focus is to help brands and retailers deliver a long-term sustainable and profitable solution to clearing non-full price inventory, without compromising on margin or brand equity erodes. We are incredibly excited to welcome Asos to our Secret Sale seller community and support their long-term strategy for managing off-price inventory.”
Purt and Chris Griffin acquired Secret Sales in March 2020, since then they have moved the business from a flash sale site to a marketplace that specializes in enabling brands to clear their excess inventory through a single channel. It now has 9 million registered account holders and trades in the Netherlands and Belgium as well as the UK.
Asos is ranked Top500 in RXUK Top500 research.
