Retailers’ trust in Trouva continues to dampen

The news that Trouva was “to temporarily pause trading while actively seeking a potential buyer for the business” was broken to retailers who sold through its platform in an email sent on 31 January.

It came after a previous hiatus in summer 2024, when Trouva left its retail partners unpaid for weeks, as it looked for new investment.

Retailers have reported they haven't been able to process any pending orders since 27 January and that Trouva has not been responding to emails and telephone calls.

However many traders had already taken steps to minimise damage to their business after Trouva's previous hiccup.

India Snow of Sunshine and Snow in Bideford, Devon, said she began trading with Trouva in 2018 when she had no online presence.

“I am forever grateful for Trouva, particularly during lockdowns and other unforeseen events when the revenue we received from their platform was vital for us to stay afloat.”

However, the platform had gone into decline and “started to become more of a money making operation, with hidden fees and charges at any opportunity,” she said.

In July 2024 Trouva “stopped paying for a number of months,” she added, a time when her business was owed almost £10,000 by the online marketplace. “I knew I needed to try and bounce back and in a way that never relied on the platform again."

Over the past few months Snow has put the money she would have spent on Trouva’s 23% commission for sales into advertisements for her own website, and has exceeded the amount she used to earn on Trouva. She explained: "I only did about £1,800 worth of sales on their platform throughout January. It’s considerably less than [in July 2024], so not as worrying."

Snow said she had just had parcels sent out to Trouva customers via DHL returned and had been informed by DHL that Trouva's account with them had been suspended, due to unpaid invoices.

Lise Harrow of Stocks, which has boutiques in Henley-on-Thames and Marlow, Buckinghamshire, said her attempts to contact Trouva in the last week had been fruitless. Trouva payments for all orders from January were outstanding, she said.

She commented: “We do a fraction of the trade we did with Trouva in the past, during lockdown. We are down to a couple of orders a day and payments are made fortnightly, so it is not too bad.”

Harrow plans to sell via its Stocks' own website, going forward, she said. “Hopefully our Trouva customers will understand that it is nothing to do with Trouva’s partners if there are problems with orders.”

A menswear retailer commented: “We managed to get paid by Trouva last time around, we learnt our lesson and decided to stay far away from the platform – we simply had zero confidence in the future of the company. So thankfully this time around we have no interest in them.”

After payment difficulties at Trouva last year and the collapse of Atterley in December 2022, the retailer had moved away from third-party platforms, he said.

“They [Trouva] are too risky, they are very expensive at between 16%-20% commission, high postage fees, out of stock fees, high returns and having to wait on average 40-50 days for payment per sale. Many brands are also tightening up on retailers using such platforms which subtracts from the advantage of using them. We will be focusing on our own website from now on.”

Trouva worked with more than 650 fashion, home and lifestyle independents across the UK and Europe, shipping to more than 30 countries worldwide.

It was launched in 2015 and was acquired by Project J, the owner of homeware marketplace Fy!, in April 2024. The purchase was the third time Trouva changed hands in two years, having been owned by Made.com and by Re:Store previously.

In explaining the decision to pause orders and sales in a statement on 31 January 2025, Jonathan Thomson, co-founder of Project J, said: "This has been an incredibly difficult decision, but we have decided to focus our efforts on building the Fy! brand and explore the options for a sale of Trouva."

Trouva has made significant improvements to its infrastructure and operating model over the past year, he added. This included implementing an AI-powered product recognition and recommendation tool.