Seasalt, the successful Cornish lifestyle-fashion brand, is considering a number of redundancies and it’s blaming higher taxes following the Autumn Budget that increased employers’ National Insurance contributions.

The company said the redundancy move was “in order to meet the challenges presented by an ever-changing retail industry” and that customer sentiment has continued to decline, impacting the outlook for trading conditions in the year ahead.

“As a business here at Seasalt, we are not immune to these very real concerns,” it explained. “In order to meet the challenges… the majority of those beyond our control, Seasalt must remain agile so that we can protect our business for the long term. 

“To continue investing in our growth plans, focusing predominantly on store and partners expansion, and large-scale projects to enhance our operations, we have thoroughly reviewed our cost base, to ensure our expenditure is not outpacing our sales and equally achieve the growth that is essential to the viability of our business. 

“This analysis has included looking at efficiencies and overall productivity, a transformation of our head office structure and a review of our retail team operations, along with, where possible, reducing the expenditure necessary to realise our sales growth.”

It all means a number of roles will be placed at risk of redundancy across the business.

The company has 76 stores around the UK and said in January that it had seen a big jump in sales for the festive season, despite it having to deal with major pressures on costs. Total sales, including stores, online, and partners such as M&S, Next and Zalando, were up 10% year on year in the final five weeks of 2024.

Back in May it had also filed accounts for 2023 showing turnover rising but some profit measures falling as investment and one-costs hit the figures.

It opened its first US store last year and plans two more in the short term.

The news on redundancies comes just after reports that its chief information officer Mel Wilcox has stepped down after less than two years. Drapers said she’s left “to seek new challenges and opportunities”.

Fast-fashion giant Shein has finally said that yes, it is planning a stock exchange listing and while it didn’t specifically say it would be in London, it hasn’t ruled it out.

Shein’s listing ambitions have long been talked about and its original focus was New York. However, the welcome for a Chinese-linked company there was unlikely to be an enthusiastic one and the rumours since then have said London was the next-most-likely option, helped by the fact that the UK is one of the business’s top five markets.

Donald Tang, executive chairman of the now-Singapore-headquartered-but-Chinese-founded company told The Times in an interview conducted in London that a listing will happen. 

And while there has been some opposition from UK groups concerned about everything from its labour practices, to its fast-fashion profile and its secretive nature, Tang doesn’t appear to be afraid of the spotlight that a listing will shine on it.

He said Shein wants to list in order “to embrace the … accountability and transparency of being a public company”.

He added that the business is “democratising” global fashion, that it complies with laws in local markets and creates less waste than its rivals do because of the low inventory levels that it holds. He also cited research that shows its customers don’t view its products throwaway items to be worn just a few times.

Tang said he “admired” UK regulators for “a clear sense of separation between politics and regulation” and he also minimised concerns about Donald Trump’s plan to close the loophole whereby low-priced important into the US are tariff-free. 

He said he himself has advocated reform to create a “level playing field” and insisted that Shein’s success is because “we have a superior business model. We are about customers. We’re not about customs policy”.

The now 13-year-old company is believed to have filed paperwork for a potential London listing last summer, although the executive chairman didn’t confirm this and hasn’t mentioned any timing for a likely listing, nor the monetary value it would have.

But the company is already a member of the CBI, the major UK business organisation. That membership came, he told The Times, because “we want to be a globalised company. In London, we want to be a British company. We want to be a British local company … we’re registered here, we’re paying taxes here, we want to be part of a community.”