ASOS to employ 2,000 people at new £90M Staffordshire warehouse
ASOS to employ 2,000 people at new £90M Staffordshire warehouse
Lichfield site will support company’s global growth
8th January 2021: ASOS, one of the world’s leading online fashion retailers, today announced that it will invest £90m in a brand-new state-of-the-art fulfilment centre in Lichfield, Staffordshire, with a plan to employ 2,000 people at the site over the next three years.
The 437,000 square feet, AEW and Allianz Real Estate joint venture warehouse is based at Fradley Park and will be operational within 12 months, allowing for a gradual ramp up with testing to meet the capacity required for peak trade in 2023. Ideally situated on the A38 with good road and airport links, the site will serve ASOS’ growing number of customers in the UK and around the world.
Nick Beighton, CEO, ASOS, today commented, “We’re thrilled to be laying down the foundations for our future growth in Lichfield. This significant investment in infrastructure and large-scale job creation is a reflection of the confidence ASOS has in its future and the quality of the skills and talent available in this well-placed location. When fully up and running in 2023, the site will support our ever-increasing customer demand and enable us to develop our offerings and delivery capabilities even further.”
Business Secretary, Alok Sharma said: “ASOS is a great British success story at the heart of our vibrant fashion industry and I welcome their clear vote of confidence in our skilled workforce. This job-creating investment in Lichfield is exactly the type of long-term commitment we need from businesses as we build back better from the pandemic.”
Councillor Doug Pullen, Leader of Lichfield District Council, added, “We are delighted that ASOS has chosen Fradley for the site of its new fulfilment centre. The creation of so many new jobs in Lichfield is very welcome news, particularly at a time when business conditions are so tough nationally. Attracting a UK success story such as ASOS into the District is clear evidence of the development opportunities that we have to offer businesses of all shapes and sizes. For me personally, ASOS’ clear ambition to contribute in a meaningful way to the communities in which it’s based is incredibly assuring, as is its track record of working closely with the Community Union to ensure staff are properly looked after. We are looking forward to welcoming ASOS as it gets established in the area and exploring opportunities for working together”.
The Fradley Park warehouse joins a growing band of global fulfilment centres for ASOS. ASOS currently operates three, in Barnsley, Berlin and Atlanta. In October, ASOS announced its results for the year ending 31st August. Over the preceding 12-month period, the company delivered a 19% year-on-year growth in revenues to £3.26bn with profit before tax rising more than 300% to £142.1m. These results were underpinned by strong sales growth across all geographies and an increase in active customers to 23.4m people.
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Notes to editors:
About ASOS:
ASOS is an online retailer for fashion-loving 20-somethings around the world, with a purpose to give its customers the confidence to be whoever they want to be. Through its market-leading app and mobile/desktop web experience, available in ten languages and in over 200 markets, ASOS customers can shop a curated edit of 85,000 products, sourced from 850 of the best global and local third-party brands and its mix of fashion-led inhouse labels – ASOS DESIGN, ASOS EDITION, ASOS 4505, COLLUSION and ASYOU. ASOS aims to give all of its customers a truly frictionless experience, with an ever-greater number of different payment methods and hundreds of local deliveries and returns options, including Next-Day and Same-Day Delivery, dispatched from state-of-the-art fulfilment centres in the UK, US and Germany. ASOS’s websites attracted 233.4m visits during August 2020 (August 2019: 187.4m) and as at 31 August 2020 had 23.4m active customers (31 August 2019: 20.3m), of which 7.1m were located in the UK and 16.3m were located in international territories (31 August 2019: 6.4m in the UK and 13.9m internationally).
About the site:
ASOS has signed a 15-year lease on the high-spec site, which benefits from 15m eaves height, a 100 metre yard and a BREEAM rating of ‘Very Good’. MWRE and Avison Young represented AEW and Allianz and Knight Frank represented ASOS.