Idle Man
Founded in 2014 by the former Menswear buyer of ASOS, The Idle Man is on a mission to become the ultimate style destination for millennial men worldwide. Having just raised £1m from institutional investors, the team are now working to further boost customer retention and expand internationally.
The Idle Man is a style destination that curates a 25-year old fashion conscious man’s wardrobe. Founded in 2014 by Oliver Tezcan, ex Menswear Buying Manager as Asos.com, the company has four pillars:
– Online store: 20,000+ active customers, CY2016 revenue £1.27m
– Blog “The Manual”: 1m+ monthly unique visits, making us currently the 3rd biggest menswear blog in UK
– Our own-label brand has grown from 5% to 19% of total revenues
– “Guide Store” in London
Menswear now accounts for 25% of total fashion sales, yet men are poorly served online. The field is dominated by Asos, Zara and Topshop/Topman whose main focus is womenswear, and offer menswear only as an afterthought.
The Idle Man is one of the first ecommerce retailers to focus solely on accessible menswear. We enjoy numerous competitive advantages:
– Low returns rate of 19% (far lower than comparable businesses)
– Strong repeat business – 29% of revenue is generated by repeat purchasers
– Difficult barriers to entry – we know that big name brands are inaccessible to new market entrants
– Exclusive own-label product only available on TheIdleMan.com generates over 19% of total revenue
– Content marketing strategy means 80%+ of revenue is generated from free traffic sources
– 43% of revenue generated outside UK
Since launch in 2014, The Idle Man has grown at an average rate of 116% YoY, and is forecasting net revenue of £2.4m for CY 2017.