Online fashion retailer Missguided has launched its own iPhone app in a bid to expand its online retail offering.

The business, which specialises in “catwalk looks and celebrity inspired women’s fashion”, hopes to use the application to strengthen ties with customers by providing access to its online catalogue as well as fashion industry news for shoppers on the move.

Missguided’s venture is the latest sign of a growing trend among fashion retailers to connect with potential buyers through mobile and smartphone devices. And after research released last week suggested that in three years time mobile owners may be spending over £250m a year on goods bought through their phones, it’s not hard to see why the fashion sector is taking such an interest.

In an effort to widen the customer experience and make its iPhone app more than simply a sales tool, Missguided has included a host of features on top of its online catalogue. New fashions are sent to users’ phones each day, and social media fashion links to the firm’s blog, Facebook and Twitter pages are provided.

By Richard Morris

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Spanish fashion retailer Inditex has announced it will start online sales later this year.

The company, which owns brands including Zara and Massimo Dutti, is due to open an online store on September 2 covering the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain. Inditex currently has more than 4,700 stores in 77 countries.

In an announcement this morning, Inditex said it would ensure the internet service is designed to be accessible not only through conventional internet access networks, but also through smartphones and tablet devices.

Firms across the world are now starting to grasp the growing importance of providing a usable web offering through mobile devices to customers. A new report has said mobile phone users purchased almost £123m worth of goods in the UK last year, and this figure is set to more than double in the next three years.

Last month, Andy Murray, head of in-store marketing agency Saatchi X, admitted he had never seen times like this before in the retail sector, saying: “Mobile is changing everything in retail”.

As part of this morning’s announcement, Inditex said net sales reached 2,67 billion euros in the first quarter of 2010, 14 per cent up year-on-year. Net income for the quarter was up 63 per cent.

Analysts and traders responded positively to the announcement, and the company’s shares jumped by 2.32 euros (5.3 per cent) to 46.2 euros during early trading in Madrid according to Bloomberg.

Karen Howland, an analyst at Barclays Capital in London, said: “Emerging-market growth and the launch of its online business this autumn will drive above-consensus top-line and earnings growth.”

By Richard Morris

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UK internet, mail order and phone sales were up 21.9 per cent year-on-year last month, according to the latest figures released by the British Retail Consortium (BRC). The month-on-month increase was 15.9 per cent on April.

The BRC-KPMG retail sales monitor showed that like-for-like UK retail sales values across all categories were up by 0.8 per cent on May 2009, when sales fell by 0.8 per cent. On a total basis, sales were up 3 per cent last month, following a 0.8 per cent increase in May 2009.

Commenting on the online sales figures, Stephen Robertson, director general of the BRC, said: “This is excellent sales growth – the highest since December.

“Customers took advantage of the many online deals and promotions, especially on televisions in the lead-up to the World Cup, as well as clothing and footwear.

“But we’ve got to put these figures into context: it’s compared with last year’s very weak performance – the lowest growth for at least 18 months.”

The BRC said while consumer confidence has improved since last year, there remains uncertainty, making people think twice before buying expensive items such as furniture.

By Richard Morris

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Mobile phone users bought nearly £123million of goods in the UK in 2009 using their smartphones, according to a new report, and this figure looks set to more than double in the next three years.

As total online retail spending in 2009 was £21.2bn – or a market share of 0.6 per cent – this means that by 2013, mobile internet sales could reach £275million, or the four per cent of the overall market, claim analysts Verdict and Ovum, who have released a joint study.

They claim that, in the last year, only 2.1 per cent of the UK adult population shopped using internet access on their mobile. This is less than a tenth of the 28 per cent of the population who have mobile internet access.

“Consumers are not spending significant amounts via mobiles and, for now, we believe the true potential for m-commerce is to provide consumers with a valuable tool for research, comparison shopping and retailer interaction,” said Malcolm Pinkerton, senior analyst with Verdict Research.

“However, with internet-savvy consumers now accustomed to the multichannel environment, they are beginning to embrace m-commerce,” he told Brand Republic magazine.

Christine Bardwell, senior retail technology analyst at Ovum, added: “The opportunities are there for the most proficient multichannel retailers to claim a share of the growing cross-channel expenditure by exploiting the possibilities provided by mobiles to seamlessly link the online and in-store environments.”

Home furnishings and women’s fashion retailer Laura Ashley has announced a 74 per cent increase in online sales during the first 17 weeks of its current financial year.

Continuing growth from its web operations helped lift the business’ total UK revenues by 6.2 per cent for the period, according to a report by Reuters.

The company, which has 229 stores across the country, said like-for-like sales were up 5.3 per cent between February and the period finishing the end of May.

By Richard Morris

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There was a sharp increase in American consumer spending online last month as e-commerce growth continues to outpace high street sales.

Retail figures for April supplied by MasterCard Advisors, SpendingPulse, show online spending in the US has risen for nine consecutive months compared to the previous year.

Online retail sales in the US increased by 15.6 per cent from April 2009, while the average value of an online transaction grew slightly by 0.2 per cent from the previous year.

In the main however, April was a “mixed” month according to the data Michael McNamara, vice president of research and analysis.

He said: “E-commerce, luxury and electronics continue to drive high year-over-year increases. Most of the weakness in April’s data can be attributed to Easter occurring a week earlier this year, shifting demand into March.”

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Google has announced it is to introduce a raft of changes which includes overhauling the current Google Advertising Professionals programme.

The company has said it intends to bring in a more rigorous certification in AdWords proficiency, aimed at companies which manage AdWords accounts and paid search (PPC) campaigns on behalf of clients.

The firm says it will include a “more up-to-date, comprehensive, strategy-focused training and certification on the latest tools and best practices for managing AdWords accounts”.

The programme will include new training materials, more challenging certification exams, an advanced exam option, as well as redesigned branding.

Other changes being brought in include a searchable directory to help advertisers find suitable Google-certified companies, and a preferred pricing system which will give qualified Google AdWords firms who manage client AdWords accounts free use of the AdWords API, based on managed client spend.

Penry Price, vice president of global agency development, said: “We’re looking forward to receiving feedback on all of these initiatives and to continuing to improve our partnership with agencies.”

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Consumers spent £4.5bn shopping on the internet in March, according to the latest figures from the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index.

Warmer weather and growing confidence saw shoppers spend 15 per cent more last month than they did during the same period in 2009. Month-on-month increases show a 42 per cent rise in home and garden purchases between February and March, and a 27 per cent increase in clothes sales.

A report by the Press Association said spending on travel fell by 9 per cent from February, although year-on-year comparisons show a 14 per cent increase.

Capgemini retail consulting and technology vice-president Chris Webster said: “These are solid figures, and prove the continued resilience of online retail.

“As the weather starts to improve, this is having an impact on sales of garden furniture as people plan for summer barbecues.”

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Supermarket giant Tesco saw revenue from its online business increase by 14 per cent in the year to February 27, after delivering one billion items bought through Tesco.com.

Profit from web activities over the past 12 months hit £136m, while the company as a whole saw an increase in annual profits of 10 per cent to £3.4bn on revenues of £56.9bn.

According to a report by New Media Age, the retailer managed to generate over £1m in sales from tescoentertainment.com within a month of launching.

Tesco boss Sir Terry Leahy said the firm had “weathered the economic storm well” and that the company plans to create 16,000 jobs this year, over half of those in the UK.

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Proof that online advertising spending has remained resilient throughout the wider economic downturn came today when Google announced its latest batch of financial results.

The search giant registered a year-on-year revenue rise of 23 per cent, with revenue of US$6.77billion for the three months to March 31 2010.

Profits rose by 37 per cent – and yet analysts remained stoically unimpressed, and Google shares fell by five per cent after the results were released.

Analysts’ unease seemed to have been caused by news that Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt would no longer take part in the quarterly conference calls announcing the company’s results – despite Google stressing that this had no wider meaning about Schmidt’s role in the company.

There was also some concern that, despite the strong performance, Google’s cost-per-click – the price advertisers pay when someone clicks on their ad – had fallen by four per cent over the final quarter of 2009. This meant that it had risen by seven per cent over the year as a whole, when many analysts had expected its AdWords programme to post an even larger year-on-year rise.

The California-based company still makes most of its revenue from outside the United States, with the proportion having stayed fairly constant over the last two quarters, at 53 per cent and 52 per cent respectively.

Google admitted that it would continue to make substantial investments. Leading up to the results, it had been active in the market, and indeed had made its first foray into the UK, buying visual search recognition app developer Plink.

Its PlinkArt software lets users analyse and identify well-known works of art and gives them the chance to buy poster versions. The developers claim the software was downloaded more than 50,000 times within six weeks of its launch. Plink founders, Mark Cummins and James Philbin, will work on Google’s own visual search project, Google Goggles.

Google had earned US$842million from the UK in the first quarter of 2010, or 13 per cent of its overall revenue – identical to the proportion earned in the same quarter the previous year.

Internationally, it said it had recruited 800 extra staff during the quarter, and its global head-count had reached 20,621 as of March 31.