News is out that a Sainsbury’s Marketplace for high street fashion is coming as the retailer looks to diversify their business. They intend to sell partner brand products though their website and 60 stores.
Former John Lewis managing director Paula Nickolds will head the Sainsbury’s marketplace and will be joined by Christine Kasoulis, also formerly from the John Lewis group.
This isn’t Sainsbury’s first foray into partnerships with fashion brands, previously Sosandar announced an agreement to sell a curated collection of its products through Sainsbury’s. A selected range will begin to be sold through Sainsbury’s during 2023, initially online only with selected stores planned later this year as Sainsbury’s increases its collaborations with fashion brands in order to provide new and existing customers with a broader selection of products.
In February news broke that Little Mistress would stock its new SS23 collection through Sainsbury’s online clothing brand, Tu.
The Times which broke the news, reports that the Sainsbury’s marketplace would offer flexible terms and conditions and more favouraable commission rates compared to John Lewis, which charges at least 40%. Brands reportedly being pitched include Jigsaw, White Stuff and Yours Clothing.
The Sainsbury’s marketplace is likely to be a closed invitation only marketplace, at least to start with, cherry picking from the best of high street fashion brands. We’ll have to wait and see whether they start accepting lesser known or online only brands in the future. What is pretty certain is that joining the Sainsbury’s marketplace is an almost certain recipe for success – As the UK’s 2nd biggest supermarket, the retailer has a 15.2% market share and that’s a lot of customers and a lot of eyeballs on their website each week.
