Secret Sales to relaunch after sale to Lifestyle Retail Group

Secret Sales founders Nish and Sach Kukadia have sold Secret Sales to LRG after taking back control of their business in a management buyout last year and will take a seat on the LRG board as part of the deal.

LRG was founded by former Superdry ecommerce director Chris Griffin and Matt Purt. They describe the company as a platform business that will be the “largest discount-only, branded-product site in the world”.

Under the new ownership, Secret Sales will continue to sell designer brands at discounted prices but will seek to make its website more immersive with the new platform due to launch in the fourth quarter.

Each designer brand will be provided with its own “digital storefront” on the website and will have more control over how their product is presented.

Purt said: “One of the biggest challenges currently faced by brands looking to launch a digital storefront is the adjacencies and the aesthetics; working with Secret Sales will address this by giving brands the opportunity to create a platform that is not only ‘on-brand’ but that will create a lot of brand equity.”

Griffin and Purt founded retail merchandising network Anatwine together, which they sold to Zalando in 2017 after hitting gross sales of over £1bn.

LRG’s creative strategy is led by Balwant Ahira, the former creative director of Farfetch and Asos.

The relaunched Secret Sales business will be supported by pop-up shops in locations throughout the EU.

Sach Kukadia said: “The new strategy with SecretSales.com remaining as the public face of the business, whilst the underlying technology platform and operations are completely redesigned to create a new-age, multichannel, off-price experience”