Farfetch

History

Farfetch was founded in 2007 by José Neves, a Portuguese entrepreneur who has been involved in the world of fashion start-ups since the mid-1990s, when he launched the shoe design business SWEAR. In 2001 he created B Store, a fashion licensing and wholesale company selling a niche range of up-and-coming designer labels in a physical boutique store. During a trip to Paris Fashion Week in 2007, when Neves was wholesaling for his B Store brand, the idea for a virtual boutique market-place came into fruition. A 2013 interview in The Daily Telegraph details the moment when Neves realised the need to give independent fashion boutiques an online retail presence: “Dozens of boutique owners had been through our doors and what they were saying was really sobering. Business was bad, they couldn't rely on local custom any more but they didn't have the experience to do e-tailing either. They had amazing taste levels but they were having to play it increasingly safe."

It was this reason that Neves decided to set up the Farfetch website, to enable small, independent boutiques to compete in the marketplace while retaining their ‘bricks and mortar’ stores and their own visual identity. A 2013 article in The Economist summarises this: “Farfetch emphasises its ‘bricks and mortar roots,” allowing independent retailers to “keep their identity, while boosting their position in the market.”

Initially, the business secured $4.5 million in growth equity from Advent Venture Partners in July 2010 to help it expand its presence into Brazilian, North American and European markets.

A key milestone for the business was then reached in March 2015, when Farfetch gained a further US$86 million from an additional investment group led by DST. Former investors also contributed to this Series E funding round, which took the total investment pot to over US$195 million. Such investors included Advent Ventures Partners, Condé Nast International, Index Ventures, Novel TMT, eVentures and Vitruvian Partners.

Collectively, these additional investments resulted in the company being valued at US$1billion in March 2015. This led to the company being branded as a ‘Unicorn’ company by media commentators, which is a term used to denote highly promising start-up businesses.

Following on from this, Farfetch announced the acquisition of iconic London-based boutique retailer Browns in May 2015. This luxury boutique is run independently from Farfetch by a newly appointed CEO named Holli Rogers who joined the business in July 2015 to manage the newly acquire boutique brand. Holli Rogers, the forthcoming CEO of the Browns boutique, was the former Fashion Director of online luxury retailer Net-A-Porter.

Additionally, Farfetch developed the proprietary business units Farfetch Black & White and Store of the Future in 2015 to provide key technology and business solutions for brands and retailers to facilitate growth and champion innovation.

In May 2016 Farfetch secured a Series F round of investment of US $110 million, led by new investors Temasek, IDG Capital Partners and Eurazeo with existing investor Vitruvian Partners also participating in the round. The company is currently valued at over US $1 billion.

In August of that year, Farfetch served its millionth online customer.

Management

Farfetch is currently led by José Neves, the founder of the business who operates as the Chief Executive Officer, directing the overall strategy and decision-making of the company. He is supported by Andrew Robb, the Chief Operating Officer who is responsible for overseeing and managing the day to day operating functions of Farfetch including online marketing, finance, HR and customer services. Andrew Robb was appointed in June 2010 following his time at Bauer Media, where he acted as Managing Director of the luxury flash-sales website Cocosa.

At the same time as Andrew’s appointment to the company, Farfetch made another key hire by employing Susanne-Tide Frater as Brand and Strategy Director. Susanne was the former Creative Director of Harrods and Selfridges.

Cipriano Sousa is the company's Chief Technology Officer, who has worked for Farfetch since its foundation, and now manages the daily operations of the technology team. Before this role, he helped to develop the technological infrastructure and website functions of small independent fashion boutiques, including the B Store brand for José Neves.

Following the Conde Nast investment round in March 2013, two more senior managers joined Farfetch to drive forward further business expansion. Farfetch first appointed Stephanie Horton as Chief Marketing Officer in August 2013 to oversee creative and promotional business functions such as marketing, PR, editorial and social media. Horton joined from Shopbop where she was Head of Global Communications. Prior to that, she worked as Executive Director of Creative Services at Vogue.

Farfetch later appointed Giorgio Belloli, who joined the business shortly after Stephanie in October 2013 to become the Chief Commercial Officer, in charge of commercial strategy and development. This followed his role as Business Development Director at Alexander McQueen.

Continued company expansion following the March 2015 investments promoted an additional round of management hiring in 2015, starting with the appointment of John Veichmanis as the Senior Vice President of Online Marketing. John formerly worked at Dell, Apple, Skype and Expedia before joining Farfetch in August 2015. Elliot Jordan was also hired as the Chief Financial Officer at Farfetch, making him responsible for the company’s financial operations. Elliot joined Farfetch with prior experience in financial management from several online retailers including ASOS and Sainsbury’s. Additionally, Ephraim Luft joined the company as Chief Product Officer to manage the development of product and UX team functions. Ephraim holds an MBA degree from Harvard Business School and has fifteen years of experience in the digital technology industry, previously working at companies such as Microsoft, Massive Incorporated and POPSUGAR.

In November 2016, Farfetch appointed Stephanie Phair as its first chief strategy officer to lead its strategic direction, innovation, mergers and acquisitions, and corporate development. Stephanie formerly worked at the Net-A-Porter Group, launching ‘The Outnet’ part of the business in 2009.

Current operations

Farfetch currently achieves approximately 10 million site visits per month and ships to customers in almost 190 countries. As of September 2014, “annual sales of merchandise through the Farfetch site…surpassed £167 million.” The business continues to grow, and in 2013, it retailed products from over 1500 global fashion brands, attracting 4.3 million weekly visitors to the site. The average spend of the Farfetch customer was stated as $680 per order in a New York Times article from March 2013.

The company divides its fashion brands into two shoppable categories: luxe brands that offer high-end luxury products, and lab brands that include emerging and experimental labels. A third department (contemporary) selling everyday casual wear was consolidated into the lab category in September 2014 to make shopping and website navigation easier for customers to understand.

Farfetch makes the majority of its revenue from the luxury brands that it sells such as Valentino, Saint Laurent, Givenchy and Comme des Garcons, but emerging and lesser known labels are said to be key to the Farfetch business. Stephanie Horton, the Chief Marketing Officer at Farfetch has explained how the Farfetch positioning is a “little left of center” because of the wide breadth of merchandise” on offer, which according to her, helps Farfetch appeal to “a wide range of consumer(s).”

Farfetch continues to support emerging designers and small boutique businesses by seeking out “new boutiques with a fresh edit in new regions.”

Following the Conde Nast investments in 2013, Farfetch launched a programme of further expansion to improve brand awareness and market share in new territories, including the US, Germany, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia and Japan. As part of this, local language websites were launched in August 2014 for both Russia and Japan as well a Chinese website which was launched this fall. This is in addition to the English, French and Portuguese language websites for European, US and Brazilian territories that were already in operation.

The company also operates an app which is works on Apple iPhone and Android devices, and can be downloaded from the iPhone App Store and Google Play.

In the past year Farfetch has expanded the supply side of its business to new territories including Canada, Australia, Morocco, Georgia, Dubai, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, Malaysia, Ireland, Hong Kong and New Zealand.

Together, this activity means that Farfetch as a company now offers over 120,000 highly curated products from more than 1,500 fashion brands sourced from 40 countries to its extensive customer base in 190 countries.

Awards and accolades

Farfetch and its representatives have received a number of industry and e-commerce awards: