Quiz
All,
Quiz Group have released another profit warning today.
The company are a small and quite differentiated competitor to New Look, focussing on glam formalwear and international presence. Quiz has a similar proportion of online sales.
Quiz prides itself of a fast and flexible supply chain, its website is excellent and social media - despite visibly lacking a professional photographer - are meeting with high engagement.
News:
Quiz are experiencing a strong slow down in sales in current weeks, which appears to be continuing at present.
The slow-down primarily comes through the physical store chain, although the company did not specify if the majority relates to the UK or international markets.
Thoughts:
If this slow-down is related to the 71 UK stores and 147 concessions, then a) the slow-down must be severe as those sales represented £66m last year and the slow down estimated for this quarter alone is £4m -> 6% LfL.
If this slow-down is not specific to glam formalwear, what about our positions in New-Look and Matalan?
New Look are closer in positioning than Matalan, so the results may have better predictive power. However, New-Look prices are now dominated somewhat by the restructuring and everyone is locked-up anyway. Tough….
Matalan positioning is more remote and there should be little overlap of customers. But if the wider apparel market is impacted, then Matalan will feel it too. At the same time however, Matalan are likely the ones fairing best.
Conclusion:
We should hedge our two positions with a third UK apparel name that is a hard-to-find-these-days mixture of: liquid, trendy, pure UK apparel and not yet destroyed. Next PLC are the first to come to mind, but perhaps we can find a purer comp.
More to follow.
About Quiz:
QUIZ is an omni-channel fast fashion brand, specialising in occasion wear and dressy casual wear.
QUIZ delivers a distinct proposition that empowers its fashion forward customers to stand out from the crowd.
QUIZ's buying and design teams constantly develop its own product lines, ensuring the latest glamorous looks at value prices. This fast, flexible supply chain, together with the winning formula of style, quality, value and speed-to-market has enabled QUIZ to grow rapidly into an international brand with more than 300 standalone stores, concessions, franchise stores, wholesale partners and international online partners in 20 countries. The Group currently operates 71 standalone stores and 147 concessions in the UK.
QUIZ operates through an omni-channel, fast fashion business model, which encompasses online sales, standalone stores, concessions, international franchises and wholesale arrangements.