Reborn BHS sees womenswear sales surge

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Sep 4, 2017

BHS may have crashed and burned a little over a year ago but the business that was picked up out of the ashes is doing very well thank you. The reborn BHS.com business saw sales rising 35% in Q2 as womenswear in particular out-performed with a 350% sales surge.

Managing director Kevan Mallinder said a start-up mindset and a determination to leave the past behind had helped, with the company’s work to rebuild the brand beginning to show results.

While the 20-strong team at the company are largely from the old BHS, two-thirds of its customers are new and hand’t previously shopped at the brand.

He told Express newspapers that womenswear strength in the last quarter was boosted by better, more focused products and staff being allowed to think creatively.

The brand is now owned by the Al Mana Group, which bought it following its failure in summer 2016 and formed the new company BHS International.

It runs the website and international franchises in Europe and the Middle East. Mallinder joined from Abel & Cole to run the online unit six months ago.

He said the firm will keep its pricing squarely at the lower end without straying into the troubled middle market and that the company currently has no plans of return to physical store retailing in the UK.