Cotton On Group

Cotton On was founded in 1991, with the first store being opened in Geelong, Australia. [1] As of 2020, the Cotton On Group consists of 8 brands with over 1,500 stores in 18 countries.[2]

The company was established by Nigel Austin in Geelong, Australia. Since then the company has launched a number of new brands; Cotton On Kids launched in 2004, followed by Cotton On Body and Factorie in 2007. It expanded to Typo (stationery and gifts), and also Rubi in 2008.[1] In 2013, Cotton On acquired Australian female youth brand Supré.[3]

Cotton On opened its first store outside of Australia, in Queensgate Shopping Centre, New Zealand in 2006,[1] and now operates in 19 countries.[4]

The design team in the company's Australian office, control the steps of production from merchandise planning to establishing specifications, and production is outsourced to approximately 850 suppliers and factories globally. Cotton On Group source their materials and products from a number of locations worldwide with the majority of their suppliers being located in China, Bangladesh, India and Australia. They also work with suppliers in Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, the United States and other parts of Asia. [5][6] These facilities are used for horizontal division of labor rather than being integrated.

The group had the following number of stores as of July 2019:[15][16]

In December 2012 Cotton On was fined $1 million for selling highly flammable children's sleepwear misleadingly labeled as low fire danger.[17] The discount clothing retailer, which has more than 900 outlets across the country, was fined $400,000 for selling more than 1000 nightdresses that breached Australian fire safety standards, and a further $400,000 for selling more than 1000 unsafe pairs of girls' pajamas, between September and December 2010.[18] It was fined a further $200,000 for false and misleading labels on both sets of clothing items which claimed they were low fire danger.[19]

In October 2019, Cotton On reported that it had stopped buying cotton from Xinjiang over concerns of abuse of human rights happening there.[20] Before that, in July 2019, Four Corners revealed that Cotton On and several other brands whose garment was sold in Australia, sourced cotton from Xinjiang, and that there were clues indicating that such cotton is related to forced labour camps.[21] Cotton On then had to investigate internally. It eventually made the above mentioned decision.[22]

Cotton On decided to fire all Assistant Store Managers in California due to COVID-19.