New Look will cast its net wider after online launch

New Look has launched its transactional website, which went live at 1am on Thursday last week.

Despite having just 700 options on offer, compared with the full 1,000-piece range, New Look strategy and business development director Shaun Wills said the site was already trading among the company's top 100 shops in terms of daily sales, despite having no marketing behind it.

The only consumer media coverage of the website so far has been on Handbag.com.

The next product additions to the site are expected to be the retailer's Inspire plus-sizes range, young fashion offer 915, and the Tall and Maternity collections, which will be added from April onwards.

The site's footwear section, which currently carries about 55% of the retailer's total SKUs, will be extended to the full offer from the end of January, depending on its performance.

Wills said that adding both menswear and kidswear would take longer. He said the site design would need to adapt to appeal to men, while kidswear is more complicated to sell online because of the number of SKUs.

He added that New Look aimed to improve customers' online experience next year by adding magazine-style areas and editorial content, videos and 360-degree product photos to the website.

Trends will also be highlighted in greater depth than at present and merchandising will be more targeted at particular customer groups.
The site is one of the few fashion retail websites to offer payments via online cash transfer site Paypal.

Wills explained that New Look still had a large proportion of customers who paid in cash and that Paypal allowed them to shop online without using a credit card.