Woohoo for Boohoo! Online Retailer raises £300 million from IPO

The story of online retail company boohoo.com is the stuff of  e-business entrepreneurs’ dreams. The business launched in the UK in 2006 and has seen exponential growth since launching globally last year. Boohoo have been in business for six years and started with a mere four employees. Today, they employ over 600 permanent and temporary staff. The business recently made successful entries into the Australian, New Zealand, US and Canadian markets. They now boast customers in over 100 countries worldwide and are excited for imminent launches into other European markets in the coming year.  And this will all be made that much sweeter by the exciting developments that have taken place for the company this past week. Boohoo.com raised £300 million through its initial public offering, when its shares opened at 70 per cent above its 50 pence offer price. This gives the firm a value of around £870 million, a whopping and very impressive amount for a company operating in a market as over-saturated as that of online retail. So what differentiates it from the ‘asos’s’ and ‘misguided’s’ of this world? Well firstly, all its clothes are own-brand and secondly its price points are noticeably lower, with an average price tag of £17. Although, take it from a previous customer, you get what you pay for – it wouldn’t surprise me if the company’s take on excellence was the old saying of ‘quantity before quality’ (and no, I don’t mean the other way around). That being said, credit where credit is due, their expansion is more than impressive with remarkable growth, so they must be doing something right!

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