The words ‘investment’ and ‘retail’ don’t really go together at the moment,” admits Nick Robertson, when I ask him if he has been approached by anyone looking to buy his growing business.
It is a fair point, but surely the chief executive of online fashion outlet ASOS would prefer his company to be viewed in its own right, rather than as part of a specific sector. Its market capitalisation is over £220m and its share price, so far, appears to be riding out the current retail downturn.
“If we keep compounding the sorts of rates we’ve been doing for the last few years, we are going to become a big business very quickly, and that’s our intention,” remarks Robertson.
Yet it seems remarkable that, until very recently, people were still questioning whether you could even sell goods such as clothes and jewellery online. “You need to be able to touch and feel them,” the critics argued.
“People forget that clothes and jewellery have been sold successfully in catalogues, by the likes of Littlewoods and Freemans, for the last 100 years,” Robertson says. “It wasn’t that people weren’t going to do it, but how much they were going to do it and whether it would pose a threat to traditional retail – those were the questions.”
Robertson isn’t ready to write the High Street off, but he knows the statistics are all in his favour. The former advertising executive has the youth demographic on his side and he knows its value. In fact, as far as demographics go, that’s the one to have.
“The generation that has grown up with the internet is very comfortable with shopping online,” he says. “This is really evident with the people who work at ASOS. A couple of years ago it was 50/50, but now they’re adamant they want to buy online.”
Out of the flames
Universal broadband has, of course, helped the company improve its website and fuelled online retail in general. But the road to success has presented a few bumps and tricky bends to negotiate along the way.
Shortly after launch, the company’s whole future was placed in jeopardy when its warehouse in Hemel Hempstead was destroyed by the Buncefield oil depot explosion. About £5m of stock was lost in the December 2005 blast, and the company’s Christmas orders went up in smoke with it. Thankfully, ASOS had invested heavily in insurance and its risk-averse strategy saved the business.
Originally, the company sold replicas of clothes worn by movie stars. This focus has been gently realigned and is now geared towards fashion, albeit with a strong celebrity flavour.
“We’ve got rid of As Seen on Screen, we’re just ASOS now,” explains Robertson. “What we found in the early days was that fashion doesn’t have to have a film or celebrity connection. What we’re doing is what every magazine has done since the dawn of time, which is to put celebrities next to pictures of fashion.”
Indeed, the ASOS website looks like every Heat reader’s dream. Shoppers can view pictures of A-list celebrities, such as Lindsay Lohan, Kate Moss and Sienna Miller, wearing an item, and then purchase it fairly cheaply from the same page. “Celebrities have a better sense of fashion than most people,” says Robertson.