International sales at cataloguer/retailer Next doubled during the last fiscal year to £10.1 million. Profits in the year ending January 2011 also rose-up 41 per cent to £2.4 million.
At year end, Next was trading in 38 countries outside of the UK, with the Republic of Ireland, USA, Australia, Germany, and Poland its biggest overseas markets. During the year, Next says it made an “important breakthrough” in two of its overseas markets. According to a company statement, Next had suffered “many failed experiments” in new customer acquisition overseas. A spokesperson for Next said the company had tried a combination of online and email marketing but found that sending printed catalogues to its international customers proved the most effective recruitment method. It is understood that catalogues are particularly popular with Next’s US and German customers and that the business has successfully driven customers to its website through mailing of smaller catalogues featuring best-selling lines. This will now allow Next to accelerate overseas growth and it expects to hit international online revenues of £20 million by January 2012.
During 2011, Next also plans to extend its online reach into Pakistan and India within the first half, and later in the year in Russia, China and Japan. Currently, the only non-English-language website Next operates is for the German market, but there are plans to cater for other languages “once we have developed our systems to cope with the complexities of dealing with non-Roman scripts,” said a company statement.
International sales at apparel etailer ASOS also soared, exceeding UK sales for the first time, in the fourth quarter 2011. UK sales rose 24 per cent during the quarter to £44.9 million, while international sales jumped 161 per cent to £48.4 million, accounting for 52 per cent of total retail revenue. Breaking the figures down into territories, US sales were £7.1 million-a 222 per cent increase in the fourth quarter 2010; EU sales rose 76 per cent to £21.3 million and rest-of-world sales increased 367 per cent to £20.0 million. Total retail sales for the fourth quarter were up 70 per cent to £93.4 million.
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