New Look Beats Asos And Next As Most Visited Fashion Website

Fashion retailer New Look may have been late to the online game but its website is proving popular with shoppers.

The retailer attracted 1,447,000 unique visitors in August - the most of any pureplay or multiple retailer selling fashion, according to Kantar Media data published in Drapers magazine. That compared with 1,388,000 unique visitors at Asos and 1,372,000 at Next.

The survey confirms our suspicions that New Look has hit a sweet spot with shoppers - and particularly online shoppers - after years of struggling.

We were told by someone senior at the chain a few months ago that returns are very low compared to industry peers at around 25 per cent. This is because of the close attention buyers pay to getting consistency in sizes so shoppers can order fewer sizes to fit and, therefore, need to return less.

Mostly we hear of return rates in fashion between 30 per cent and 45 per cent, making it potentially costly and with huge advantages for those that can tackle the issue head on.

New Look only launched in 2007. After a slow start, it's internet sales have grown rapidly in the past two years and increased 50.1 per cent in the year to March helping the retailer back into profit. They now account for 7.5 per cent of sales.

The August figures were relatively weak compared to previous months and compares to about 1,800,000 unique visitors to New Look in July.

Interestingly, of the pureplay retailers, Boohoo.com was the second most popular site after Asos, with 680,000 visitors. The figures suggest that it has recently overtaken Very (645,000), a close third, Ebay (630,000) and Littlewoods (512,000).

Of the multiples, Debenhams was third behind New Look and Next with 1,274,000 visitors followed by Matalan (1,204,000) and Marks & Spencer (1,101,000). 

John Lewis was way down the rankings after the likes of River Island and Topshop - perhaps suggesting that, while it only had 467,000 unique visitors, it’s 800 million or so turnover comes from a smaller number of shoppers who each spend a considerable amount with the company.