Today’s InternetRetailing newsletter comes to you direct from the packed Internet Retailing Conference 2014, where today we’ve already heard about the future of retail from keynote speakers including John Lewis, Zalando and House of Fraser. Among the headlines is the news that John Lewis’ first Click and Commute stores opened its doors at St Pancras Station – online director Mark Lewis told IR he’d got the text saying that his first order was ready for collection just before he opened the keynote session. House of Fraser also announced it was to launch deliveries that arrive before 9am the next morning for orders placed by 8pm – in fact most households, he said, would receive them by 8am.
IRC 2014 was also the location where retailers heard how they’d performed in the first IRC UK Top 500, the Internet Retailing listing of the UK’s leading traders. The full report was available to attendees at the conference, but will come along with the next issue of Internet Retailing magazine.
But we also have news that online sales grew at their slowest for more than a year in September, according to the BRC, which says shoppers haven’t been convinced they need woolly jumpers when the thermometer has at times topped 25 degrees celsius. Today we also report on the latest updates from boohoo.com, where first-half sales are up by almost a third, from Burberry and Mulberry, both seeing a softening of demand for luxury goods, and from Thorntons as it transforms its business.
Our webinars
Click to visit the Internet Retailing webinars page to find out about any upcoming webinars and to catch up on any that you may have missed.
Our conference
Our next big event is the Internet Retailing Conference, to be held on October 14 at the Novotel, Hammersmith, London. Keynote speakers confirmed so far include Mark Lewis, online director, John Lewis, Andy Harding, executive director, multichannel at House of Fraser, and Jérôme Cochet, senior vice president sales at Zalando. The conference takes the theme of Re-foundation, and will be keynoted by retailers who have led transformation within their business as their product sector or the retail landscape have evolved. Find out more at http://internetretailingconference.com/
Catch-up on IRX 2014
If you missed an Internet Retailing Expo 2014 presentation that you’d like to catch up on, you can do so now through the post-event website. Visitors to www.internetretailingexpo.com can access all the presentations that we’ve been given permission to share with our audiences.
