Barratts staged to return online
loading...
A new business is currently being developed by footwear experts Harvey Jacobson and Micheal Ziff, after Leeds-based
footwear retailer Barratts went into administration for the third time in five years.
Last year December, footwear entrepreneur and chairman of the Jacobson Group, Harvey Jacobson was named as one of the backers to have acquired the intellectual property of Barratts. Now, alongside with Barratts former chief executive, Michael Ziff, the two will work together to relaunch and run a multi-brand footwear online store, known as Barratts.co.uk, which is predicted to start trading end of next month.
The Jacobson and Ziff families are the major shareholders in the new business, known as W Barratt & Co, with a number of backing unnamed investors, reported Drapers. The jointed venture is not part of Jacobson's company, the Jacobson Group.
The new website is set to offer third-party brands of women's shoes, men's shoes, girl's shoes, boy's shoes as well as accessories such as handbags, luggage pieces and umbrellas. However an own brand offering is expected to be launched as soon as possible. It is unconfirmed how many brands will be participating in the websites relaunch, but Jacobson stated that they hoped to obtain "a balance of serious brands".
Nevertheless, approximately 2,000 models will be made available for the website's re-opening, with the majority of the offering focusing on women's wear, with retail prices set to range between 30 and 50 pounds for women's footwear and 40 to 70 pounds for men's footwear, according to Drapers.
Rebecca Dunn, former buying at Barratts for eleven years has been named head buyer, while Tony Lahert, CEO of online service provider Step Solutions, is in charge of the technical side of the business as company non-executive director. Jacobson has been named company chairman and Ziff is responsible for working with "product providers," as the company will work alongside with brands, but also seek out future opportunities to team up with other retailers.
"Michael and I are shoe men, so we have brought in experts from the home shopping and technical side. We acquired details of 1.5 million opted-in customers when we bought the intellectual property of Barratts, so we have a ready-made target group," commented Jacobson.