In The Style stock exchange listing to happen this month

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Mar 1, 2021

In The Style Fashion Limited has formally announced its intention to float on AIM — the same market of the London stock exchange that hosts the listings for ASOS and Boohoo. Its shares should debut on March 17. It didn’t state a target share price but there has been speculation that the float would be worth around £100 million.

One of a wave of innovative e-tail businesses that have come out of Manchester this century, the womenswear e-tail brand has been growing fast in recent periods. And it said that it has significant further growth potential. It has delivered unbroken revenue growth since its launch in 2013 and saw net sales of £41 million for the whole of last year.

But its financial year starts in April and it added that it delivered £35.4 million net sales and £3.6 million Adjusted EBITDA in the nine months to 31 December, with sales up 159% compared to the same nine months in 2019.

The company, which was founded by entrepreneur Adam Frisby, uses an influencer collaboration model to target the 16-35 age group. It says this influencer model is differentiated from others as it works with them “on a long-term basis to collaboratively design, develop and promote branded fashion collections — as an authentic and cost-effective way to drive customer engagement and sales”. The business model “shares the risk and reward of the collaborations through royalties linked to the commercial success of individual influencer's ranges”.

This has helped it to constantly grow its active customer base and it said shoppers are “increasingly returning to buy more frequently”. The company said it had an active customer base of 0.7 million people by the end of last year, which was up 61% year-on-year. 

Of course, in a year when the pandemic was the biggest news story on the planet, that's perhaps no surprise. But the firm feels that it has the ability to continue its growth and said that attracting new customers was as much about “a number of business and product strategies, including the expansion of its product ranges and an increase in the frequency of collaboration launches” as anything else. 

It expects new customer acquisition to continue this year having agreed seven new partnerships with influencers that will launch in 2021. In fact, it flagged “one of its most exciting influencers to date who is expected to launch in April”.