Middle market retailer Country Road has not ruled out a global e-commerce platform, following the soft launch of its online store late last month.
Country Road group general marketing manager Jacqui Moore revealed members of its loyalty card program were the first to be given a preview of the store on August 24.
Members of the company’s general database was alerted two days later, along with fans of the brand on social media website Facebook. The store opened to the general public shortly after, followed by a fully fledged marketing campaign on September 1.
Despite what appeared to be an edited online product offer at the time of press, Moore said the intention was to represent as much of the Country Road collection as possible. This includes ranges across womenswear, menswear, childrenswear and homewares.
“Product is updated on the website on a fortnightly basis, in line with store deliveries,” she said. “The exceptions are those few items which are too unwieldy or fragile to ship.”
Moore said no special inventory or warehousing systems had been introduced to complement the e-commerce platform, with all orders fulfilled through existing distribution centres and its network of retail stores. She described it as an “efficient” model which could handle deliveries from international consumers should its delivery terms be expanded.
“At this stage the online shop is open only to Australian and New Zealand residents and there are no immediate plans to launch it globally. However, we haven’t ruled it out further down the track.”
Country Road has 64 stores in Australia and New Zealand, along with 81 concessions in department stores David Jones and Myer. The publicly listed company reported a total sales growth of 8.5 per cent to $372.1 million for the financial year to June 30, 2010.
Total sales from its retail stores was $289.3 million, up by 13.1 per cent on the previous year, while concession sales grew by $82.3 million.
Discount-led marketing conditions saw it post a 21.2 per cent decline in profits however, with a $12.3 million after-tax result.
Assia Benmedjdoub