Rock ’n roll inspired online retailer Little Lies expands as sales boom amid lockdown

A rock ’n roll inspired online retailer founded from a Fife bedroom five years ago is embarking on an expansion and recruitment drive.

Jade Robertson, who founded the business from her bedroom five years ago, said the company had been planning to move away from its Dundee city centre retail base to a new facility to cater for its burgeoning online presence.

The Little Lies venture was started in 2015 and set up shop in Dundee city centre three years later as the brand expanded. Selling Boho-inspired clothing, homewares and a large range of band t-shirts, the firm has almost 125,000 social media followers and dedicated customers around the globe.

Jade Robertson – who founded the business from her bedroom in Kirkcaldy – said the company had been planning to move away from its Dundee city centre retail base, now closed, to a new facility to cater for its burgeoning online presence.

Those plans were accelerated after a sales spike in the spring – with a new unit in Glencarse, on the A90 between Perth and Dundee, identified and transformed into offices, creative space and a fulfilment centre.

The firm has created nine jobs at its new Perthshire HQ taking its headcount to 12 and invested some £70,000 in more than doubling the size of its premises. It plans to hire further creative staff in the coming months to bolster its online content and design teams.

Robertson said: “Like everyone in retail we were really worried when lockdown hit – there was a noticable drop in sales for a week or two and our city centre store was obviously closed.

“We refocused and redoubled our online efforts – which was how we started and where most of our customers are anyway – and saw a huge uptick in sales as we got into April and May and right through the summer.

“That has allowed us to speed up our expansion plans, closing the city centre store and focusing all our efforts on our online boutique.”

She added: “Our new facility allows us to have our fulfilment team, office staff and creative staff all in one place.

“We’ll be bringing in further creative staff over the coming months. We pride ourselves on the quality of content we create for our social media channels and are moving in to designing more of our own clothing and homeware lines in house.”

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