Moss Bros to trial premium service in bid to revive hire business

Moss Bros boss Brian Brick told Retail Week that the new premium rental service would be launched in the fourth quarter of the year and would allow customers to rent products from the wider retail range.

“One change that is exciting is that we’re going to be doing a trial of a new, premium rental service which will [enable] customers to come in and, if they like something they see in retail, they’ll be able to rent it from us,” said Brick.

“We’re very excited by that. We think the rental space – if you look at Uber, Airbnb – we see it as a great opportunity. It’ll give the customer a big opportunity – the garment will always be new, and the customer will pay a premium price.”

In doing so, Moss Bros will be following the likes of Rent the Runway, Girl Meets Dress, and others in the fashion rental space. 

Brick also said the retailer had a plan to turn around its traditional, ailing hire business, by introducing “seven new, best-selling lines” into the wider hire range.

“We’re confident that will do well and we’re confident that, next year, the hire range will be back into strong, positive territory.”

‘We don’t want to pay more than the market rent’

Brick also said that Moss Bros was moving towards more of a turnover lease model with its landlords, and that he believes the retailer would be trading well if it was paying what he described as “market rents”.

He claimed the high level of CVAs and administration activity seen earlier in the year had effectively “reset the market”.

“There is a move to turnover elements in the leases. What we want is, we don’t want to pay more than the market rent. On the basis that there’s been a vast number of CVAs – if somebody down the road is paying less, why should we be paying more? They’ve reset the market. We believe we can trade well, at market rents.”

He also said that across the Moss Bros portfolio, “leases are getting shorter, breaks are becoming a lot more common”, which make conversations around turnover leases “much easier”.