Vulpine Clothing

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.

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.