Country: Britain

Beating its rivals like H&M and Forever 21, Britain’s largest online-only fashion retailer ASOS has emerged as the most popular brand among millennials, states a report by Slice Intelligence, a market research firm. ASOS, known for young adult street fashion, grabbed 60 per cent of its apparel revenue from millennials last year.

ASOS was followed by e-commerce company Rent the Runway with 56 per cent of its apparel revenue generated through millennials and indie fashion retailer ModCloth with 53 per cent.

Both Forever 21 and Topshop witnessed 52 per cent of their online apparel sales coming from millennials last year. Express.com, Thinx, Urban Outfitters and H&M generated 51 per cent, 51 per cent, 50 per cent and 49 per cent, respectively, of their income from millennials.

Also Read – ASOS to unveil its own sportswear range this year

Amazon emerged as the destination where millennials spend most of their money. According to the report, consumers aged 18-35 made 16.6 per cent of their online clothing purchases on Amazon last year, compared with 8.1 per cent on Nordstrom.

John Lewis, which operates 48 outlets across the UK, has decided to invest £ 4 million in a new customer service initiative in 20 of its shops to strengthen its omni-channel customer experience.

The retailer has decided to provide iPhone loaded with a dedicated ‘Partner App’ designed to enable 8,000 Partners who work on the shop floor to quickly help customers with information about products, check stock availability, and place orders.

The app designed and built by John Lewis’s in-house online team will put an end to customers waiting for Partners to go to stock rooms to see whether a product is in stock, or check information at tills as they will be able to help on the spot.

The app gives Partners visibility of stock availability in all shops and at John Lewis’s warehouse in Milton Keynes, where online orders are fulfilled, as well as product information, customer reviews, the ability to email customers product information and to place orders. During the busiest week in the trial, half of all online purchases made in the shop assisted by a Partner were made using the app.

Also Read – John Lewis aims for £ 1 billion ‘Home’ business

Announcing the new initiative Craig Inglis, John Lewis’s Customer Director said, “As online and physical worlds increasingly come together, this initiative, which forms the foundation of our digital strategy for shops, will support our Partners in offering great customer service in a digital world.”

Britain’s largest online-only fashion retailer ASOS has announced to venture into sportswear. The online retailer is expected to launch its own sportswear range in November this year. The yet to be launched sportswear will be appropriate for yoga, running, fitness, surfing, skiing, skateboarding and snowboarding.

ASOS, which brings in about 4,000 new styles every week to keep the shoppers interested in the retailer’s offering, sells sportswear collection of Adidas, Nike, Reebok, Puma and Ellesse and others are available on online-only fashion retailer.

Also Read – Online fashion retailer ASOS posts 36% sales growth

Primarily aimed at young adults, ASOS sells over 850 brands as well as its own range of clothing and accessories. The clothing brand recently posted a 28 per cent increase in revenues to Euro 203 million for the four months to July.

JD Sports Fashion, sports apparel and accessories retailer, has bought Manchester-based sales and distribution company 2Squared Agency. The details of the sale are yet to be revealed. Financial crisis with latter is being seen as major reason for this move. 2Squared Agency set up by Neil Corrie and Martyn Harrison used to be a sportswear buyer for JD Sports.

The deal is the latest acquisition by JD Sports, which added to its roster of both UK and international businesses in 2016.It acquired 100 per cent of the issued share capital of Go Outdoors Topco Limited, a UK-based omnichannel outdoor retailer in November 2016.

Also Read – JD Sports Fashion acquires Go Outdoors

JD Sports was in news in December last year after a Channel 4 documentary revealed that working conditions at its Kingsway warehouse was “worse than a prison”. Founded in 1981, the JD Group now has well over 800 stores covering both sports and branded fashion.