Luxury slippers brand Mahabis falls into administration
Upmarket footwear brand Mahabis has entered administration after four years of trading, the company has confirmed.
The luxury slippers maker called in administrators KRE on 27 December, despite selling almost 1m pairs of slippers in more than 100 countries.
Mahabis described itself as “desperately disappointed” at the news.
The online retailer – which targeted millenials with its trendy indoor footwear via pop-up ads and email discount offers – owed £2.6m to creditors in the 12 months to June 2017, more than double the £927,000 it owed the year before, according to Drapers.
Customers seeking to return goods were also very unlikely to receive a full refund, the company warned.
“It is very likely that if you return goods you will not receive a full refund and any refund will take many months,” the firm said. “We would recommend therefore that you consider carefully whether or not to actually return goods.”
Founded by entrepreneur and trained criminal barrister Ankur Shah in 2014, Mahabis sought to market its “slippers reinvented” to younger customers in a market typically chasing older people.
In an interview with the Times, Shah said he had found a niche in the market for “the Nike of downtime”, while the Guardian reported that analysts valued the company at up to £100m.
Staff worked a four-day week at the company, which published a “Mahabis Manifesto” that advocated a corporate culture that embraced the idea of workers taking “downtime”.
It is not clear yet what caused the retailer’s financial misfortune.