Online News
Online retail in the UK was worth £58.8 billion in 2010
As well as launching a local website in France (their first international transactional site), M & S have appointed Sapient Nitro 'to create a digital platform and e-commerce system that will meet M & S's target of increasing online sales to between £800m and £1b by 2014'.
Burberry has switched the majority of its marketing (60%) to digital after a 29% increase in business in the first half of 2011 'due to innovative design, digital marketing and retail strategies'. Earlier this year Burberry's Body Fragrance was launched, not in print, but on Facebook.
Primark is going online: 'Primark would risk losing market share if it wasn't online'.
'ASOS half year profits soar by 66%'. ASOS has launched three international sites (Australia, Italy and Spain). Work is underway to enable its platform to handle all language character sets rather than building individual sites for, say, China and Russia. This will take 12 months longer but will be more efficient in the long run. Overseas revenue grew by 150% (UK 8%).
Lindsay Nuttall, global head of strategy and communications at ASOS says: 'I don't think it's a question of one or the other (magazine, mobile or tablet). These modern platforms are helping us become boundless and allow us to become more immersive and interactive. You can't get hung up on platforms. Our consumers are platform agnostic, seamlessly jumping from one to the other, and we have to be the same'.