High street retailerDebenhamsexpects its online
operations to soon account for the largest proportion of its
sales.
Rob Templeman, the firm's CEO, said that following "significant
investment in our online store", sales had risen 51% to around
£30m. "We believe that it will [soon] become our largest store," he
said.
Templeman said the redevelopment of the online shop "brings our
product ranges to a larger audience and allows the development of
niche micro-sites such as Health & Beauty.
"As a result, the number of orders received has risen
substantially and gross transaction value has increased by 32% over
last year."
He said more work on the site was underway to improve sales and
extend the reach of the Debenhams brand to areas of the country not
covered by its 141 stores.
Templeman said that the firm's capital spending programme over
the past three years had been to add new stores and improve
infrastructure. This included £37.1m this financial year for a
warehouse at Peterborough and "numerous IT developments" that
include an in-store radio frequency (RFID) platform to track
goods.
In the year to 1 September 2007 Debenham's gross sales grew 5.1%
to £2.3bn from £2.2bn and revenue increased by 3.9%, but
like-for-like sales fell 5.0%. Gross transaction value from the web
was up 32% on 2006 through a 31% increase in orders taken, he
said.