A new way to shop small
I was first introduced to Farfetch several years ago when the diminutive Portuguese born founder, José Neves gave a talk at the Melbourne Fashion Festival business day. The concept, to showcase the best independent fashion boutiques around the world. The business was founded in 2007 and has grown exponentially since then with reported revenues in 2015 of $500m (Fast Company).
Shopping their website is like taking a virtual shopping tour of the world. You can go to any of over 400 boutique partners across 35 countries. Shop by city, shop by brand. Visit boutiques in Amsterdam, Lisbon or Tokyo or peruse the 798 items available from Kenzo or the 1,700+ items from Dolce & Gabbana. It is not just well known designer labels either. If you are searching for something a little different, chances are that up-and-coming designer labels will be in one of the Farfetch boutique stores. And an added bonus is that the customer pays only one delivery fee, no matter how many boutique stores they buy from.
Working on a commission based model, partner boutiques have reported up to 30% of their sales coming from the website. The company’s head office is in London with satellite offices in New York, LA, Tokyo, Shanghai and Sao Paolo and now employs over 1,000 people.
It is no surprise then that José Neves has receive countless awards including the Vogue ‘Top Entrepreuner’ award in 2011, CEO of the Year award and the prestigious British Fashion Award.