Farfetch Just Bought Stadium Goods for a Sh*t-Ton of Money

Business of Fashion is reporting that online retail platform, Farfetch, is acquiring sneaker and streetwear consigner, Stadium Goods, for a whopping $250 million.

Announced yesterday, the deal is Farfetch’s “first major move since going public in September,” and will make Stadium Good’s full inventory of what Farfetch founder, Jose Neves, called “rare sneakers” available to Farfetch’s millions of users.

Stadium Goods, for their part, will “continue to operate independently while tapping into Farfetch’s logistics and delivery capabilities,” as well as the platform’s $1 billion annual reach and footholds in places like China, Russia, and the Middle East.

If you stare longer than two seconds at this one, it’s hard not to be a little cynical. Neither of these companies actually put themselves on the hook for inventory, they just help others move theirs. What’s more, Stadium Goods isn’t going to stop partnering with other e-comm platforms — even direct Farfetch competitors like Alibaba’s Tmall, a channel that apparently accounts for 15-20 percent of SG’s sales. As SG’s founders told BoF, “[Farfetch] need[s] to do what’s best for Stadium Goods [and] should be open minded if channels are bringing great customers.”

So to recap, a middleman e-comm platform bought a middleman consignment sneaker store for a quarter of a billion dollars, and the sneaker store offered no promise of exclusivity and a business model that relies entirely on customers for inventory. 2018, you were a real one.

You can read more about at Business of Fashion.

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