Online fashion entrepreneur Sojin Lee, former chief buyer for luxury icon net-a-porter and co-founder of multichannel platform Fashionair, was already smiling before the question could be posed in its entirety.
Addressing the growth of e-tail at the L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival (LMFF) business seminar last year, Lee was asked to comment on where Australia stood in the global shopping phenomenon. Her answer was quick and preceded recent uproar over GST-free purchasing on international websites: Australia has, from the outset of her career in digital fashion, continually ranked among the top five markets for online traffic.
And the relentless march continues, if this year’s LMFF E-tail Detail Forum is anything to go by. While four speakers took to the podium, it was asos.com fashion representatives Jo Hunt and Jemma Dyas who captured the attention of High Street executives in the audience. In January this year, Australia became the third largest market for this UK-based fashion beast, a substantial billing given it attracts 11 million unique visitors per month to its portfolio of 800 brands and private Asos collections.
To capitalise on this new-found demand, the company has since introduced free shipping rates and a price conversion tool for the country. Its relationship extends beyond pure consumer transactions, with local brands such as One Teaspoon, Stylestalker and Sass & Bide also offered for sale on the website. As exclusively reported on www.ragtrader.com.au, an internship program is currently in the pipeline for emerging local designers interested in working at the e-tail giant.
It was a simple premise which first saw the birth of Asos in 2000, Hunt says.
“Our chief executive Nick Robertson was inspired by a tale he’d heard relating to the hit sitcom Friends. When it aired, 25,000 fans called in to the switchboard, swamping the TV network, trying to find out where they could find the frame that hung on the back of Monica’s door. He saw a real opportunity in this to sell products that we see on TV and film screens back to an increasingly technologically savvy group of consumers.”
Its celebrity-inspired product offer quickly exploded to include a broad range of men’s, women’s, beauty and accessory offers with over 30,000 products sold across the site and 2000 new items going live each week. As well as stocking brands such as Reiss, French Connection and See by Chloe, the real mark of its success is in the fact half of all Asos sales are from its privately developed collections. A finely tuned supply chain allows it to convert a trend-driven garment from drawing board to delivery in just under three weeks.
As Hunt and Dyas reveal, speed is also inherent to the company’s marketing and selling strategies. In addition to the launch of a new mobile phone platform last year, which currently accounts for three per cent of sales, two additional microsites have launched in the past six months. The first was Marketplace, which looks set to extended to Australian users by the end of this year. It allows UK-based users to buy, sell, and swap fashion independently; useful for shoppers who want to recycle their wardrobes or small businesses looking to launch their own mini online stores. The latter is given access to an Asos business development manager to “maximise” their potential and media support through viral marketing campaigns.
“Just the other week, one of our vintage boutiques from a really small seaside town in Margate gave an interview which ended up in the New York Times,” Dyas says, adding that vintage is a strong area for Marketplace. “It’s not something that we could really buy through normal buying and merchandising functions.”
The latest subsite is Fashion Finder, which was launched in February this year and allows retailers to sell fashion on a commission-based model. As well as traditional High Street stores, luxury operators such as Browns, Liberty of London, mywardrobe.com and farfetch.com have enlisted in the program.
“But it’s not just a shopping website,” Dyas says. “There’s lots of editorial content, catwalk information and street-style blogs to immerse yourself in. These two innovations ensure that asos.com is the first point of call for anybody who is looking to explore fashion online.”
There are schemes outside its immediate website which warrant a mention, such as the recently launched Asos Incubator project for emerging designers. Delivering an end-to-end solution, the collaborative venture manages the sampling and production process for participants, all the way through to stocking the product exclusively for the first season. The second season gives designers the opportunity to wholesale their products globally and take over back-end processes.
Then there is the company’s sweeping engagement with social media platforms; as early as February, it became one of the first European players to launch a fully integrated Facebook and fashion store model. This means its 400,000 Facebook fans no longer need to log out of the media channel to shop on the website, with exclusive offers and discounts thrown in as incentives.
“There’s also an opportunity to liaise directly with our customer service for post-purchase support,” Hunt adds. “Of course, they can also leave feedback about their experiences on Asos, negative or positive, and see what their friends have bought and liked. It is a true 21st century equivalent of traditional word of mouth recommendations.”
Hunt admits these initiatives are integral to filling the void created by its lack of brick-and-mortar presence. There are forums where customers and Asos staff are encouraged to participate; regular tweets and blogs from Asos buyers scouting the world for new designers; and daily ‘discovery’ posts on Facebook where buyers post fresh products for debate among followers.
“Another way of engaging with our customers is personalisation,” Hunt says. “Our 1.8 million registered users can expect to receive a weekly newsletter which is tailored to their individual profiles. This is based on buying habits and previous purchases offering selected new and exciting brands and products. With such a large range of products available on our site, a personalised edit can really grab the attention of a customer who may be feeling overwhelmed by choice.”
But have all these bells and whistles added anything to the bottom line?
Asos raised just £2.8 million at its 2001 float on the UK’s AIM – today it is valued at over £1 billion and posted a 59 per cent rise in recent half-year profits. It saw a 120 per cent increase in international sales, with UK sales by comparison rising just 26 per cent. Unsurprisingly, it has launched dedicated websites for the American, French and German markets.
Asos has also invested in its supply chain, acquiring a factory in Haringey to manufacture select products locally whilst retaining its sourcing partners in India, China, Turkey and Brazil. A new warehouse is scheduled to open in Barnsley later this year, creating 1000 jobs and seeing the implementation of a multimillion dollar management system.
“As early as yesterday, we launched a quicker checkout procedure on our mobile online store,” Hunt says. “Speed and ease of transaction is key for this sector. Less clicks quickly translates to more sales. Asos is constantly innovating.”