E-commerce performance improved at two multichannel retailers

Monday, July 23, 2012 - 11:15 by Graham Miller

The latest figures show that both Sports Direct and Halfords have benefitted from much improved sales made via safe shopping online over the past 12 months, according to Internet Retailing.

Sports Direct got an 81.8 per cent bump in its e-commerce sales, which reached £174 million and accounted for 11.6 per cent of its total sales across its outlets, both online and off.

Part of the success has been due to the fact that the retailer rebranded 351 of its bricks and mortar stores to Sportdirect.com, intrinsically linking the domain name to its high street presence and driving sales to its e-commerce site.

The impressive e-commerce growth allowed the company to increase profits by 24.5 per cent and grow overall revenue by 13 per cent.

Spokesperson, Dave Forsey, said that every Sports Direct division had been able to set new revenue records in the last year.

Halfords was also the beneficiary of increased sales made via safe shopping online, with a 13 per cent rise in e-commerce revenue. This is despite the fact that the group saw turnover drop off by 5.2 per cent across the board, during the first period, as its high street outlets struggled.

Spokesperson, Dennis Millard, said that part of the problem was that the current economic climate had been exacerbated by the actual climatic conditions, with poor weather keeping consumers away.

Of course all the rain has played into the hands of online retailers, leading many to see increased traffic as people choose to stay in and shop via e-commerce, rather than risk getting wet.

The one anomaly in the online market was Mothercare, which saw a 7.1 per cent dip in e-commerce trading during the first quarter. It managed to make up for this with growth overseas, but it will be interesting to see analysis of why its online efforts faltered in the UK.