The re-design is part of Asos’ strategy to develop stronger connections with its community of customers and talent through both fashion and content.

The PR Showroom launched with a two-day event, attended by over 100 influencers and fashion industry leaders. Influencers took centre stage during the opening day, with key Face + Body partner brands, including Charlotte Tilbury, Dyson, Sunday Riley, and Ruuby Nails, offering guests express treatments.

Asos also offered exclusive previews of its Autumn/Winter collection alongside a seasonal gifting suite.

Read more: Asos relaunches influencer programme

“Our revamped showroom brings together fashion, content, and talent as only Asos can,” said Amy Norris, head of social, PR, and talent at Asos.

“This new space creates opportunities for us – and our brand partners – to showcase the very best of Asos to our community.”

More than 800 businesses from more than 50 countries sell through Asos websites, including its marketplace, reaching customers in more than 200 markets around the world.

In 2021, Asos bought the Topshop, Topman and Miss Selfridge brands from the Arcadia Group. It now sells through a variety of own brands and third-party brands and is developing a ‘test and react’ strategy that sees products go from design to sale within three weeks. Asos is also working with influencers to build its visibility on social media.

The latest episode of a brand new podcast, recorded at the inaugural Retail MediaX event, sees Elton Ollerhead, director of Asos Media Group, talk about its retail media journey, the ‘fashion lens’ view of retail media and how creativity is key to retail media campaigns.

Ollerhead joins Katie Streeter Hurle, chief strategy officer at SMG and Paul Skeldon, research editor at InternetRetailing.

The series, in association with SMG, sees Skeldon joined by a member of the SMG team and a special guest speaker. With future episodes featuring Co-op, Stonegate Group and ITV.

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While affordability remains a concern, health, sustainability and convenience are increasingly shaping purchase decisions. The online channel may be growing but bricks-and-mortar stores remain dominant. 

Understanding these trends is essential for CPG brands to develop strategies that cater to the evolving needs and preferences of European consumers. Looking ahead, several trends will continue to impact the European CPG market: 

• The rise of private label – As Europeans prioritise value, private label brands offered by retailers are expected to gain further market share. CPG companies will need to differentiate themselves through innovation and strong brand positioning. 

• Data-driven marketing – Understanding consumer behaviour through data analytics will become crucial to personalise marketing strategies and target customer segments. 

• Omnichannel strategies – CPG companies must offer a seamless shopping experience across online and offline channels to cater to evolving consumer preferences. 

• Sustainability – Pressure will continue to mount on CPG companies to adopt sustainable practices throughout their supply chains, from sourcing materials to packaging and waste reduction. Consumers are increasingly willing to pay a premium for eco-friendly options. 

• Technological innovation – Technology will play a vital role in the future of CPGs. Innovations such as smart packaging, connected appliances, and personalised product recommendations will enhance the consumer experience and drive sales. 

• Subscription services – Subscription boxes delivering curated CPG products cater to consumers’ desire for convenience and discovery. This trend is expected to gain traction, particularly in niche categories like healthy snacks or beauty products. 

• Western versus Eastern Europe – Western European consumers tend to prioritise sustainability and health, while Eastern European consumers are more price-sensitive. 

• National and regional preferences – Local tastes and traditions play a significant role. For example, the demand for specific types of bread or dairy products can vary significantly between countries.

In this RetailX European Consumer Packaged Goods market 2024 report, Paul Skeldon looks at the underlying market for CPG goods in Europe, how each part of the often complex supply chain has to change to meet these new demands and what that means for a raft of key players in the sector.

Drawing on market data, consumer surveys and case studies, the report offers a snapshot of where the European CPG market is today, where it has come from and, crucially, where it is heading.

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In womenswear, AX Paris, Gini London and Urban Bliss will be added to its website alongside jewellery brands Jon Richard and Say It With. Menswear brands include Crosshatch, Duck & Cover, French Connection and Tokyo Laundry.

Footwear brand Totes has joined the line-up, with nursery lines from Hauck, Ickle Bubba, Tommee Tippee and LeapFrog also added. Matalan’s online homewares selection will now include Asiatic Rugs, RU Comfy, ValueLights and a host of other brands to increase the range of kitchenware, bedding and soft furnishings available at Matalan.co.uk.

Ali Jones, chief customer and omnichannel officer at Matalan, said:  “This is our third drop of new online brands since Christmas, which is testament to how well they have been received by Matalan shoppers who we know are on the hunt for more choice and newness when they visit us.

“With such a wide range of relevant and fashionable brands available alongside our core Matalan collections, we are a ‘one-stop-shop’ for customers, which is key to our strategy of building a modern, stronger Matalan.”

In April, the retailer introduced 17 new third-party brands exclusively online, with the likes of Brave Soul, Regatta, Threadbare, and ToeZone added. This had followed 10 third-party brands, including Blue Vanilla, Quiz and Roman, added to its website in December last year.

Matalan is ranked in the Top50 of the RetailX UK Top500, growing from a market stall in Liverpool to a £1bn turnover omnichannel fashion retailer.

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Launched in Germany in 1949, Adidas now employs more than 59,000 people across the globe and generated sales of €21.4bn in 2023. 

The company is known for its development of sports kits for national teams as well as for its footwear, some models of which have become icons in their own right. At the time of writing, the adidas Germany website highlights the kit that the German football team will be wearing at Euro 2024. Fans can view the items and also purchase replicas on the adidas site. 

Inclusivity is important to the brand, both in terms of the sports for which it designs apparel and in its sponsorship of athletes. Nine teams at the Paris 2024 Olympics and six Paralympic teams are sponsored by adidas, including athletes from the UK, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Ethiopia, Ireland, Bahrain, Cuba and Turkey. 

The company claims to be more than sportswear and workout clothes. “We partner with the best in the industry to co-create,” it says. “This way, we offer our fans the sports apparel and style that match their athletic needs, while keeping sustainability in mind. We’re here to support creators. Improve their game. Create change. And we think about the impact we have on our world.” 

That co-creation includes ranges with designers including Stella McCartney, while research into sustainable design and circularity saw it launch a 100% recyclable performance running shoe. 

The strength of these collections and links with designers is highlighted in the navigation of the ecommerce site. Consumers can navigate by collection, by sport or by product type. Shoppers can sign up for free to become a member of its adiClub loyalty scheme in order to receive a 10% discount on purchases. 

Delivery is free on orders over €50, otherwise customers can pay €4.99 for standard delivery. Orders take between one and three days to arrive using this fulfilment method. Alternatively, a customer can collect their order from a store on the same day if it is stock at their chosen location or pay €5.95 for express delivery. Items can be picked up from a collection locker as well. Exchanges and returns are free within 30 days. 

Adidas is one of eight company profiles in the RetailX Germany 360° report, with it also looking at Douglas, Hornbach, Lidl, Otto, Rewe, Rossmann and Zalando.

Our first edition of the RetailX Germany 360° report. This new format reports on the German digital landscape, its consumers’ attitudes to shopping online and details of the retailers that lead the market. These are analysed through charts and the RetailX ranking.

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In November 2023, the retailer regained its crown as the UK’s biggest womenswear retailer, overtaking Next in terms of value of sales. It was a position that the company hadn’t held since pre-pandemic in 2019. 

M&S reported underlying sales of clothing up 5.5% in the six months to 30 September 2023, with particularly strong sales in holiday wear and denim. Its profit margins also increased as more of its products were sold at full price, rather than being discounted. 

Building a brand portfolio 
The retailer is reinventing itself as an icon of style and continues to build its brand portfolio, most recently rolling out Nobody’s Child pop-up shops to 48 new stores in March on top of the existing 12 stores. The 450-sq-ft spaces offer a capsule collection of more than 30 pieces from the SS24 collection. Nobody’s Child was the first third-party brand to be introduced to the company’s platform. Since then the Brands at M&S platform has grown to more than 90 third-party brands, helping to drive new customers, frequency and spend. 

In a similar move, the company has also expanded its range of sports and activewear. It launched The Sports Edit on M&S.com in February 2023 and earlier this year revealed that in the 12 months since searches for sportswear had grown by 110% on M&S.com. The website is now home to 20 third-party partners, with recent additions including Puma and Reebok. 

A focus on sustainability
In its latest efforts on sustainability, M&S announced in April the option for the public to donate unwearable, as well as wearable, preloved clothing through a new trial of a free postal donation service in partnership with Oxfam.

Its research showed that a third of the UK didn’t know what to do with clothes that can’t be reworn, with three in ten customers putting them in their household bins. M&S has been offering customers a second home for their preloved clothing since the launch of Shwopping in 2008. 

This profile, authored by Liz Morrell, is one of six featured in the RetailX UK Fashion 2024 report. It also looks at:

• Kurt Geiger -The 60-year-old British business continues to thrive in its luxury footwear and accessories segment
• Secret Sales – Continued growth, with ambition to become Europe’s largest marketplace for discounted fashion
• Zara – Since its debut in 1998, Zara has continued to thrive in the UK market. It has a clear focus on sustainability
• Boohoo – Continues to surprise as it moves from fast fashion towards a focus on sustainability
• Cider – Popularity is brewing among younger consumers, with its smart fashion model regarded as key

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The campaign, created with editorial photographer Justin Bettman, aims to showcase to consumers -whether existing members of the brand’s community or not – that Gymshark is not a sports brand, but very much a gym brand.

The UK-based brand has the strapline ‘We’re not good at everything. We’re great at one thing’, with this latest campaign shouting ‘We Do Gym’.

“At Gymshark, we’ve never really followed in the footsteps of anybody else and we’re getting very intentional about that,” said Noel Mack, chief brand officer at Gymshark.

“People sometimes mistake us for a sports brand or an athleisure brand, but we’re a gym brand; that’s a new idea to many, but to us, it’s our reason for existing and for our community – it’s their reason to believe in us.

“In a world of fast scrolling and short attention spans, we wanted to find a way to tell consumers everything they need to know about us in the shortest most understandable way we could, and I think we pulled it off – Gymshark, We Do Gym.”

An exclusive company profile looks at how the brand has built a powerful image through social media savvy and influencer marketing that has resonated with a younger, fitness-focused demographic.

The newly published RetailX Global Sports Goods 2024 report profile also covers Gymshark’s work to create campaigns with Muslim athletes and influencers, such as Umaymah Makda, to create more diverse content appealing to a wider demographic. This programme led to the creation of the first sports-friendly hijab.

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Superdrug’s cosmetics range, Studio London, is the fastest growing and biggest own brand range and has contributed to it achieving 20% year-on-year category growth in cosmetics. The beauty retailer reported a 9.1% volume growth in December, as customers prepared for the party season. Superdrug now holds 40% market share of mass market cosmetics, their highest market share in 10 years.

In the peak trading weeks leading up to Christmas, three own brand gift sets were sold every second and three fragrance sets were sold every minute.

However, traditional gifting wasn’t the only winner, with oral electricals proving a popular gift choice. The category hero was the Superdrug ProCare Water Flosser, which landed on shelves in quarter three and went on to sell more than three times the number of units than its branded counterpart had sold all year. The flosser also sold-out online and in-store numerous times during the Black Friday sales period.

Furthermore, Superdrug has invested in the expansion of Beauty Studio services, with December seeing the launch of the latest studio in Jersey. December also marked the milestone of the 500^th piercing store, with piercing continuing to prove the most popular service, up 54% in December vs 2022. Beauty Studio also recorded one of its biggest sales months in December, with sales up 20% vs the same period last year.

The golden quarter saw online app sales up 74% year-on-year and 127,000 new registrations for the Health & Beautycard, with total membership reaching 18.1 million thanks to the launch of VIP Rewards, which sees Health & Beautycard members being rewarded for spend on top of Superdrug’s already great everyday offers.

Peter Macnab, Superdrug CEO, said: “We are exceptionally pleased to be reporting strong Christmas results and appreciate our customers continued support. We understand the pressures customers are currently facing and are committed to supporting them and offering the very best in accessible health and beauty.

“The strong sales growth in own brand really demonstrates that customers are seeking quality products from a brand that they can trust, at an affordable price. Our continued investment in to expanding the store estate and digital services, as well as in innovation, remain imperative and has helped contribute to an increase in sales throughout the December period. I’d like to thank my colleagues for all of their hard work in bringing such a fantastic and competitive offering to shoppers and for their contribution to these results.”

Discover how Superdrug become the UK’s first high street health and beauty retailer to have a marketplace in an exclusive company profile in the ChannelX European Marketplaces 2023 report.

Download the full report to discover what the marketplace landscape looks like today, and where it is heading. With 100+ figures, graphs and charts clearly illustrating the insight and research of this dynamic sector.

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The fashion and homeware retailer has invested £35m in the initiative, the latest under new chief executive Jo Whitfield. It will see prices lowered across a range of categories including women’s denim, leisurewear and basics; menswear and children’s clothing. Bedding, bathroom and home storage products will also be included, with the new prices available in store and online.

“The start of the year is always a tough time financially and this year, given how difficult 2023 was for so many families, it’ll be harder than ever,” explained Whitfield.

“So, for 2024 we want to start the year off differently. We’ve unlocked efficiencies at a time when inflation and input costs are starting to fall, enabling us to pass these savings on directly to our customers – bringing down the prices of new and existing lines of everyday essentials and favourites across all our key categories.

“It’s all part of our mission to build a stronger, more modern Matalan that brings families a better choice of quality clothes and homewares at great prices.”

The price reductions follows the introduction of 10 new third-party fashion brands – including Blue Vanilla, Quiz and Roman – to its website at the end of last year, as Matalan works to grow its online offering.

In October 2023, its latest statement admitted that online trading remained “challenging” for the retailer. It reported a decline in Q2 website revenue of 35%, citing “product offer weakness from option and value reduction, website development post launch and tough market conditions with strong competition and a shift to physical store shopping”. However, strong store sales performance of +8%, supported sales growth of +1%.

The UK Top 100 retailer was recently profiled in the RetailX UK Fashion Sector Report 2023. Download the full report to discover how apparel, footwear and accessories performed individually and where these segments are heading. The report also looks at how speedy delivery and free returns are among the key factors shaping online fashion shopper purchases.

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For online retailers, recommendations now fulfil the place that the shop assistant used to. The aim is the same – to inform shoppers of a wider range of products in the hope that they will make a purchase. 

These are among the metrics considered by RetailX research in the Product Value Chain, which explores how retail businesses ensure that they sell products profitably – thus adding value to their bottom line. It looks at the tools that traders use to ensure that shoppers see as much of their range as possible and check the availability of items they want to buy. It also assesses whether they offer added value product services such as rental or repair. 

When retailers show as much of their range as possible, they make it more likely that they will sell through more of their lines – thus ensuring that they can sell an item at a profit, rather than selling it off later at a discount. Banner advertising, promotions and recommendations are all useful in drawing attention to products.

Almost all Growth 1000 retailers (99%) use banner advertising on their websites to flag up products, while 82% show promotions or discounts on their websites that encourage shoppers to buy a particular item. Such promotions matter to UK shoppers, research suggests. RetailX’s August 2023 ConsumerX research found that cheaper prices are a key reason for 39.6% of 249 shoppers to go online to buy, while 34.5% are looking for good offers. 

Retailers can add further value when they help customers extend the life of their products or give them access to products in different ways. 7.5% offer a product mending or repair scheme, while 1.4% show mending instructions for their products. A similarly small number (3.8%), make their products available to rent. 

Recommendations strategies
Recommendations are very useful in showing website visitors alternative products to the one that they are looking at. That means that if a customer doesn’t want the item they are looking at, they can also consider others from the same range, as well as items that might compliment what they’re looking at. This approach has a real influence on customer opinions, according to ConsumerX research. It found that 32.6% of 969 online shoppers questioned said that they found retailer or brand recommendations either very or significantly influential, while 40.8% found them slightly influential. 

Given that retailer recommendations can influence purchase decisions, what recommendation strategies do Growth 1000 traders use? Most often, they recommend products that are similar (81%) to the one being viewed. That’s a nine percentage point (pp) increase over a year earlier. 

The graphic shows how use of this type of recommendation has changed over time on Growth 1000 websites. It’s notable that while the tactic of recommending similar products has long been used by the majority – 66% of a subset researched every year for five years did so in August 2019 – use has grown slowly since then before reaching a new higher level of 78.3% in February 2023. In terms of sector, retailers and brands selling hobby supplies and products are the most likely to show recommendations for similar products (90%), followed by homewares (88%), DIY traders (88%) and those selling flowers and gifts (88%).

Fewer recommend complementary products (38%) that go with the item being viewed – a shirt to go with trousers, for example, or batteries for a toy. This tactic is most often used by fashion brands and retailers (49%), by multi-sector retailers (45%) and by homewares retailers (40%). Only 31% of hobby retailers and 37% of DIY retailers take this approach, with both being more likely to recommend similar alternatives. 

Upselling is the least-common recommendation strategy, with 37% suggesting products that are more expensive than the one being viewed. Just 23% of retailers enable shoppers to check whether an item is in stock in their local store.

How Ribble Cycles uses recommendations
Premium bike brand Ribble Cycles takes a range of measures to ensure that shoppers are thoroughly informed about the products they are viewing before they buy. Different models are explained thoroughly on its product pages, from the measurements for different sizes to information on the different components used.

The brand’s website offers a live video connection to the store so that shoppers can ask questions and see products demonstrated for themselves – something that will be particularly important when visitors are considering buying relatively expensive products. Product videos are also available to view on the site, while the website user can see reminders of recently viewed products. 

Reviews and product questions are shared for each product, while recommendations of ‘related products’ – generally complementary products – are shared on the product accessories pages. Shoppers can also sign up to the Ribble Cycles newsletter for the latest product news.

This feature was authored by Chloe Rigby and features in the RetailX UK Growth 1000 (G1K) 2023 report. Download the full report here, it is designed as a useful tool both for those that have sold online confidently for some time, and for those that are now working to improve the way they sell online. This year’s report zooms in on – and lists the 1,000 companies that follow the RetailX UK Top500 (published in February 2023).

These are businesses that are not (yet) at the size of the largest retailers and brands, but they play an important role in the UK economy and are, despite challenges, taking a highly agile and resilient approach to selling online and across channels.

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Zara’s owner reported growth both in stores and online, with strong holiday season trading. Its peak sales were up 14% in the six weeks to 11 December.

“They’re in a very good place and they continue to gain strong market share,” said Alistair Wittet, portfolio manager at Comgest in Paris, which holds Inditex shares.

The RetailX Brand Index Europe 2023 report features a company profile highlighting how Zara gained such a strong market share.

The profile looks at how the global fashion brand enables its shoppers to browse and buy from an image-led, mobile-first website and from stores around the world. The brand’s roots go back to founder Amancio Ortega’s 1963 dressmaking workshop, with the first Zara shop opening in 1975 before the Inditex group was built around it.

At the end of its 2022 full year, the group sold online and globally through over 5,800 stores, with the Zara brand accounting for more than two thirds (68%) of the group’s total selling space. Almost half (47.5%) of Inditex stores are in Europe. 

From the Zara website home page, shoppers can sign up to the Zara newsletter or click through to six social media pages – TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. Its largest following is on Instagram, with 60mn followers. On Facebook, over 30.9mn followers view a mix of fashion shots, videos, a store front and demonstrations. 

Zara uses high-quality images throughout a pared back mobile-first website that enables shoppers to use the mobile ‘hamburger’ within the primary categories on its website – women, man, children, and beauty. Items are easily swiped and zoomed in on to show the name, image and price from the category page.

When clicked on, each item reveals what products are made of, where they come from, and colour, size, store availability, shipping and returns options. When shoppers add an item to their shopping cart, they see recommendations of complementary items that complete the look.

From its home Spanish website, standard delivery costs €3.95 (free over €30) and takes up to three days. Next-day and same-day delivery are available, the latter within Madrid and during the week. Shoppers can also pick up their order from a Zara store for free or from a delivery point for free on full price orders over €30, or €3.95 under that. Shoppers have 30 days to return unwanted items, either to a Zara store or delivery point for free, or through home collection at a cost of €1.95. Payment options include PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Spanish mobile payment method Bizum.

 Zara outlines its sustainability approach on the website, setting out its commitments and progress as it works towards net zero emissions by 2040. Zara first signed the United Nations global compact more than 20 years ago and launched its first environmental strategic plan in 2002.

This company profile originally appears in the RetailX Brand Index Europe 2023 report.

Download the full version now for insight into who the Top500 direct-to-consumer brands selling digitally in Europe are; how brands are best learning to serve customers who buy directly from them; and how sustainability is moving up the agenda fast for customers and brands alike

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