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Having announced last year that it would be selling PrettyLittleThing, Debenhams Group will be retaining the online-first brand following a “material improvement in profitability”. The company formerly known as Boohoo Group will reportedly still look to sell other “non-core” parts of the business.
The reported turnaround provides an opportunity to look at how PrettyLittleThing performs relative to other brands under the Debenhams Group umbrella. Data from YouGov BrandIndex UK paints a mixed picture. In terms of Value for money, for example, its score of -2.0 sits solidly in the middle of the pack as neither the worst performer (Boohoo: -3.0), nor the best (Oasis 1.4). In terms of Quality scores, PrettyLittleThing (-8.8) underperforms Nasty Gal and Oasis (7.9), but again, it outperforms Boohoo (-12.6). This is not too encouraging, but for a brand identified with “fast” fashion, it is also perhaps none too surprising.
Impression scores, which measure whether consumers have a positive or negative opinion of a brand, tell a similar story: at -4.1, PrettyLittleThing outperforms Boohoo (-5.3), but falls short of Nasty Gal (-3.2) and Oasis (7.7), again the standout performer of the group’s comparable listed brands. Index scores, a measure of overall brand health that averages several metrics, summarise PrettyLittleThing's standing with the public: at -4.4, they are closer to the lowest-scoring brand (Boohoo: -5.3) than the highest (Oasis: 5.5).
The metric where PrettyLittleThing is overperforming, however, is arguably the most crucial: Current Customer scores, which measure whether consumers have recently purchased from a brand, sit at 1.3 compared to 0.1 for Nasty Gal and 0.5 for Oasis, with the most negatively-perceived brand coming out on top (Boohoo: 1.6). Debenhams Group’s more positively perceived sub-brands are still underperforming those brands which consumers view more negatively. This data may raise two crucial questions. Firstly, how can Debenhams Group improve the public perceptions of brands that are commercially overperforming? Secondly: how can it improve commercial appetite for its more well-liked brands?
This article originally appeared in City A.M.
Image: Getty