BHS reborn: Qatari group to launch ranges online
Tarnished brand is back – just five months after store collapsed
BHS is to relaunch in the UK on Thursday as an online retailer – just five months after the original company collapsed.
The online shop is being launched by the brand’s new owner, the Qatar-based Al Mana Group, with a plan to offer a full range of home furnishing and fashions in time for the Christmas season.
The new operation, which is unconnected to any of the previous owners of BHS, has invested in a new website, and has agreed deals with many of the suppliers who previously sold through BHS.
The former BHS online business had 1.2million customers, who will now automatically be registered with the new service.
The operation is being headed by David Anderson, a former executive at the old BHS group. Anderson said the online business at BHS had been profitable and had been showing rising sales even through the last few difficult years for the wider business.
‘I want this business to break even as quickly as possible, but this is being built on solid ground,’ said Anderson, who worked at the former BHS business from 2009 and was retail operations director for its last three years.
‘The new venture has nothing to do with the old owners,’ he added.
The Al Mana Group bought up BHS international business and the rights to the BHS name in June, after the original firm collapsed in April. The Qatari conglomerate runs a raft of businesses from cars to technology as well as acting as a franchisee of international retail brands including Zara, Mango and Benetton. It also operates 70 BHS stores outside the UK which remained open after the collapse of the UK group.
The new BHS will be headquartered in London and employ 84 people and will encompass both the international franchise of BHS stores as well as the BHS.com business.
The BHS.com site will launch with a range of lighting and home furnishings, which accounted for 50 per cent of the old BHS online sales. The site will add kitchenware in October and a fashion range before Christmas. Anderson said a new website had been purpose built for the launch.
The 1.2million customers of the old BHS online shop were notified earlier this year that their details had been passed to new owners. Anderson said those customers would receive a special offer – thought to be a 10 per cent discount – when they first visit the site.
The site is also expected to attract a slightly
different customer to the old BHS stores. ‘In the old BHS, our average customer age was 50-plus. Online it is more like 35-plus,’ Anderson said.
Analysts have warned that any attempt by BHS to move to a younger, more fashionconscious market would force it to compete against the historically more successful M&S and John Lewis brands.
However, the collapse of the old company has allowed the BHS brand to separate itself from its high street stores at a time when most groups are finding bricks and mortar outlets a cost burden and most sales growth from online shoppers.
The range of products offered on the BHS site will be much smaller than the previous site, with Anderson saying the total range will be around 3,000 products.
The vast bulk have been selected from the best-selling lines from the old BHS.
‘I thought we would find it quite difficult to get the suppliers to work with us, but out of about 100 who we knew from the old BHS, less than a handful said they did not want to.’
BHS was owned by billionaire Sir Philip Green until March 2015, when he sold it to would-be retail entrepreneur Dominic Chappell. The group went into administration just over a year later.
The collapse saw 163 stores close, cost 11,000 jobs and left a £571million black hole in its pension fund.
Sir Philip has faced fierce criticism from MPs and is working on a deal with pension authorities to sort out the shortfall.
The Al Mana Group was founded by Saleh Al Hamad Al Mana and is now owned by his three sons – Wissam, Hisham, and Kamal.
Wissam married the US pop star Janet Jackson in 2012.