Vulpine Clothing

When?

He said the brand was dying on its arse iirc.

https://www.lfgss.com/comments/13216666/

Except he deployed an inappropriate apostrophe.

8 months ago

Gotta feel for the employees. But, doesn't come as a surprise.

Apparel market is very tough.

I feel for the investors.

Gutted for Nick (and the Vulpine staff), genuinely one of the nicest and most committed people I met in the cycling biz when I was doing my blog.

I've tried to think of a way to ask this without it sounding critical, it's not meant to be:

How does an internet shop go bust?

Buying stock on tick in the hope it'll sell on before you have to pay for it?

Same way internet fixie teams get sponsorships .. nothing on the internet is real

Not an expert, but I imagine for anything bigger than a home business you have lots of the same overheads, you don't pay for a shop but you pay more for virtual shopfront stuff. You can't just put everything on ice and have no outgoings, you still need cash flow.

Expands too quickly, employs too many staff to cope, over commits financially, directors drawing big salaries
Whole host of reasons

Sad to see them go bust but it was bound to happen.

What was their business proposition? It was a bit shit.

Shrinky merino.

I'm looking forward to the sale, they handle them with such elan.

What Rapha are doing with the city collection, no? Five years ago there weren't that many people doing that stuff in the UK. I really really like their merino polos and alpine jerseys - not always massively durable, true, but comfortable on the bike and smart enough for the office. Never had any problems with shrinkage. Found the summer trousers and shorts comfy too. Admittedly I never paid full whack, but that was more tightness than anything else - the rolling sales just made that easier.

Seeing stuff in TK Maxx last year was a bit of a sign. If your entire range is delayed though (would want to be having a word with supply chain on that - why not staggered shipment?) you're going to take a hit on cashflow, then if you look at year on year sales it'll look awful (which is why investors would be dubious - it's easily explained but leaves a doubt)

Buying stock on tick in the hope it'll sell on before you have to pay for it?

That is called cashflow and every company is at the mercy of it.

Internet shops don't have zero costs, just lower costs. You still have R&D costs for the items, manufacturing lead times, shipping times, marketing costs, warehousing, distribution... all of which involve outlay long before there is revenue to cover it.

The first ~70-80% of what you sell is covering all those outlays... if you sell the items at full price. The remaining 20-30% is your profit, but it's also your returns, sale items, promotional items.

The margins are surprisingly narrow because whereas we all sit back and look at the BoM (Bill of Materials) and claim something only cost them £10 and shouldn't be sold for £40... we aren't looking at all of the operational expenses that support a business.

I was worried about Vulpine when I noticed that the frequency and intensity of their sales increasing. It looked to me like they were suffering cash flow problems.

They've got a good range, a good line of clothing, decent materials, and they fill a sweet spot in a growing market... but cash flow is the great leveller.

I hope they find a buyer, and I hope whoever that is has deeper pockets to survive the cash flow struggles, and is specialist in the operations side of the business. Cash flow can be less of an issue with world-class operations, but that is a catch-22... you can't afford world-class operations without some serious cash to invest in it.

Most of all re:Vulpine specifically, I feel for Nick. He's going to be going into shock, and will be in a lot of financial pain in the near future, I hope everyone here can get behind the human side of it, it's hard... I hope they take time to recover, get out in the sun, go for walks, and focus on their wellbeing and mental health. This shit hurts like nothing else.

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/07211640/filing-history

Look at their small company accounts from Jan. They weren't selling enough, quickly enough.

With the list of shareholders that invested through Crowdcube what happens to their investment, down the swamy? Or is their some level of insurance?

All gone, I'd assume. Maybe they'll get a small part of whatever the receivers get back from the company - but that's 10p on the pound at best, and I doubt Vulpine have anything close to £1m of assets on hand.
I'd feel a lot worse for Nick had he not fucked up the initial £1m investment, seen that the company was going down the toilet, and done his best to get more money out of people in the second crowdcube before the shit hit the fan publicly. I don't think that speaks for his integrity in this situation - it seems to me more like a desperate, don't care who gets burned attempt to keep the very wobbly wheels on.
With hindsight - even very recently there were some extraordinarily questionable business decisions being made. The magazine they produced at great expense? Those two bleedingly expensive August bicycles the founders bought? Were I an investor, I'd be fucking livid!

The most telling thing is that the article about those bikes has been removed from the Vulpine website. Jokers.

I'd love a funded career break 'to do what I am "passionate" about' when I have my midlife crisis too.

To be fair, I doubt he went into this looking to run a long con - I'm not sure* if he ever mentioned this but he was an ex-racing cyclist and has passion for all things bike - this was his dream. Problem is, it was never much more than dream world in terms of business decisions, was it?
It sucks hugely for his employees, for his family, for the investors. On the other hand, the warning signs for those investors were there.

*sarcasm asterisk

I saw a lovely baby blue foffa down at the Oval for the cricket on Friday....

I was just going to ask here about their shorts, came in to read this, damn shame

It's on the front page of the Sunday Times Business supplement