E-tailer Miss Shoes goes under, returns culture partly blamed

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Jan 30, 2019

Online fashion retailer Miss Shoes, best known for its Fuel Your Fashion Online (FYFO) brand, has gone into administration. The family-run firm has named administrators Price Bailey to oversee its administration process. The company employs 20 people. 

The Norwich-based business operated online only and was founded in 2007 by Martin and Monica Lott, originally as an eBay shop. It later grew to reach an annual turnover of £3 million and rebranded its e-store in 2011 to FYFO. 

Matt Howard of price Bailey said it and the company had “exhausted all efforts to find a buyer for the business as a going concern over the holiday period” and that therefore administration was seen as the best way forward.

Howard added: “This is another example of the challenging trading conditions facing many retailers in the current climate, in spite of significant investment. It shows how tough trading conditions are, even for online-only fashion retailers, who are having to contend with unprecedented levels of discounting, squeezing margins.”

He also highlighted that while pureplay e-tailers are seen as the most likely winners in the current weak conditions, they’re also “particularly vulnerable to the costs associated with people returning unwanted items, which has become more prevalent in recent years as technology has enabled more impulse buying.”