Halfords, Gear4Music, The White Company: IRUK Top500 retailers report on growth

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In today’s InternetRetailing newsletter, we report on IRUK Top500 retailers from Halfords to Gear4Music to The White Company as they report stories of growth.

Looking closer, each seems to have a different reason for their success. At Halfords, for example, online sales are rising, boosted by a trend towards collect-in-store, while the retailer has also benefited from what it terms a ‘staycation summer’. Meanwhile, geographical expansion is driving both Gear4Music and The White Company – and both are investing accordingly. Dune London says that personalised messages are helping to lift its conversions.

Each individual success story is part of a wider retail environment that saw online sales help to lift overall retail sales in August. The month saw both stronger spending and more transactions completed online – suggesting a back-to-school rush, and perhaps the growing willingness of parents to stock up online.

We follow the back-Adthena tracked search spending in the back-to-school rush and came up with some interesting findings.

Today’s guest comment comes from Meyar Sheik of Certona, who considers how retailers might approach personalising omnichannel engagement.

The Tamebay Ecommerce Cup

The Tamebay Ecommerce Cup 2017 will be held on September 7 and five-a-side teams are now being invited to sign up. The tournament, now in its fifth year, is moving to a new venue in Shepherd’s Bush and promises FA refs and a comfy new players’ lounge complete with screens to keep tabs on competitors’ matches.

“We had a total of 26 teams enter last year, and it was great to have both suppliers and retailers competing, with Deliveroo taking the top spot and runners up Uber narrowly missing out,” says Mark Pigou, founder of InternetRetailing Media. “This year promises to be just as competitive.” To enter a team of up to 10 people (five players and five subs), sign up here.

Sponsorship opportunities are limited to three companies: email Joey Evans (joe.evans@tamebay.com) for more.

Webinars

Find out more about upcoming InternetRetailing webinars and register for free on the InternetRetailing webinar page. You can also catch up with past webinars on the page: recent sessions have come from IBM Watson on using AI to improve the customer experience, and from SmartFocus and The Entertainer on using social to reach digital customers.

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