Quiz trading stays strong but HoF failure costs it £0.4m

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Sep 5, 2018

Fast fashion brand Quiz is continuing its progress, although it has taken a hit from the House of Fraser failure and will lose hundreds of thousands of pounds as a result.

The company has historically operated 11 House of Fraser concessions and also sold its products through the retailer’s website so the chain’s administration filing and subsequent buyout by Sports Direct will dent Quiz’s half-year to September 30 by as much as £400,000.  

But at its Annual General Meeting on Wednesday, non-executive chairman Peter Cowgill was generally upbeat. He said that the board is pleased with the group's performance in the financial year-to-date and has seen “continued growth across each of our channels.” 

And it was encouraging that he also said the company is “particularly pleased with the positive customer response to Quiz’s product range over the summer.” A number of other fashion sector players have suggested that the summer season has been less-than-stellar this year.

Cowgill added that the company continues to focus on “maximising the Quiz brand's online potential by investing in our websites' and apps' ongoing development as well as effective marketing activity.” In line with its strategy, it’s also now “generating stronger growth through Quiz’s own websites compared to third-party websites, which experienced exceptional growth last year following the launch of partnerships with Zalando and Next.”

The company’s UK stores and concessions have also performed well during the year-to-date, “despite the previously reported softening of footfall during April.”

The stores have been helped by the opening of two new standalone sites during the period (Bluewater shopping centre in Kent and Oxford). Both of those new locations have “performed encouragingly since opening,” and the company continues to “review opportunities for further expansion of the store estate in line with our strict internal return-on-investment criteria.”