Type Public Industry Clothing retail Headquarters London, United Kingdom Founded 3 June 2000 | Traded as LSE: ASC Website www.asos.com Revenue 1.158 billion GBP (2015) Number of employees 4,000 | |
![]() | ||
Key people Brian McBride (director) (CEO)
The Lord Alli
(Former Chairman)
Nick Beighton
(CEO (Sep 2015 -))
Nick Robertson
(CEO (June 2000 – Sep 2015))
Anders Holch Povlsen
(27% stake) Products Clothes, shoes, accessories, beauty Stock price ASC (LON) 5,368.03 GBX +39.03 (+0.73%)27 Feb, 5:12 PM GMT - Disclaimer CEO Nick Beighton (2 Sep 2015–) Founders Quentin Griffiths, Nick Robertson Profiles | ||
Asos.com (/ˈeɪsɒs/ EI-soss) is a British online fashion and beauty store. Primarily aimed at young adults, Asos sells over 850 brands as well as its own range of clothing and accessories. Revenue for the financial year ending 31 August 2015 was £1,119.9 million. As of August 2015, ASOS PLC has net assets of £237.3 million.
Contents
Asos.com is a global online fashion and beauty retailer, offering womenswear, menswear, footwear, accessories, jewellery and beauty products. It sells over 80,000 branded and own-brand products online and through mobile experiences.[2] Asos has websites targeting the UK, Australia, USA, France, Germany, Spain, Russia, Italy and China. It also ships to over 140 countries from fulfilment centres in the UK, US, Europe and China.
Asos' headquarters are in Camden Town, at Greater London House. As of 2013, their main fulfilment centre is in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, where they employ 3,000 workers. The Customer Care department is based in Hertfordshire, United Kingdom.
In 2016 the company launched its first drama-game show series called #DIGIDATING, starring AJ Odudu. It was billed as an Internet dating show with backstage drama. In September, 2016 an investigative report from Buzzfeed News alleged poor working conditions at Asos’s warehouse. However, company spokespersons contended that the isolated complaints reported in the Buzzfeed article were not reflective of the general working conditions there.
History
Asos was established on 3 June 2000 by Nick Robertson and Quentin Griffiths. Despite deprecating its original meaning (AsSeenOnScreen), Asos is still written as an uppercase acronym; the exception to the rule being the new logo designed by Ben Lewin in 2008, where it is stylistically shown all in lower case.
In 2001, Asos was admitted to the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) on the London Stock Exchange.
In 2003, Asos shareholders agreed to change the names of AsSeenOnScreen Holdings PLC and AsSeenOnScreen Limited to Asos PLC and Asos.com Limited.
In 2005, the Buncefield Fuel Depot explosion closed the business for six weeks and £5m of stock was lost.
In 2008, Asos debuted kidswear on its site but the branded market suffered declines at the expense of fast-growing own-label kidswear offers. In 2010 the Multi-brand retailer announced it is axing its kidswear offer to concentrate on its core young fashion market.
In 2013, Asos opened its first office outside the South West, in Birmingham In 2013, Asos recalled belts contaminated with radioactive cobalt-60. In 2013, Asos Russia and China were launched. In 2014, a fire in their Barnsley warehouse caused them to stop taking orders for almost three days.
Asos has over 4,000 employees and is the UK's largest independent online and fashion beauty retailer.
In 2015, Asos teamed up with breast cancer awareness charity CoppaFeel in order to raise awareness of the disease. Asos rolled out the charity's #BraHijack campaign labels on its own-brand lingerie.
Asos International
In the final quarter of 2010, Asos launched three international stores in France, Germany and the US. In September 2011 they launched three more sites in Australia, Italy and Spain. Asos opened its first international office in Sydney, Australia, in 2012. Asos extended to the US in September 2013 in Rochester, NY.
Sponsorship
During the 2014 Formula One season, Asos.com was a sponsor of the McLaren Formula One team. It was originally assumed that the sponsorship would be a one-off deal lasting only the duration of the 2014 Australian Grand Prix, the inaugural race of the season. However, this has been proven false, as the Asos.com logo was seen on the back of the rear wing of the 2014 McLaren Formula One car, the McLaren MP4-29, throughout the 2014 season.

