The family owned fashion retail franchise has traded its second-year dividends to pump up its online shopping services and open new stores across the UK. River Island’s chief executive, Benard Lewis shared the retailer’s plan to double the size of its digital office in Shoreditch and to increase and upskill its technology team to boost its online capabilities. Mr Lewis explains: "2016 was a year of heavy investment for the business as we focused on River Island's technology, which is very important to our strategy, investing and expanding our product ranges and investing in people.”
Mr Lewis, who is the nephew of River Island’s founder, reported the company has partnered with Google’s location services to help shoppers find the nearest stores to them and check the availability of any specific outfit in stock and in their sizes. In addition, the retail company has invested in the implementation of artificial research and machine learning in order to best meet their online shoppers’ needs and expectations whilst improving the overall shopping experience for shoppers who wish to come directly into the stores. Mr Lewis announced a growth of 21% last year for both online and mobile sales that helped raise the total sales 3.5 % to £970M in the year to December 31st.
“We are a healthy business in terms of our profits and cash flow and we believe in investing in the opportunities for River Island to ensure there is a sustainable future for the long term,” says Mr. Lewis.
River Island holds its expansion reigns steadily to continue to grow and improve its online and in store shopping experience.
“We are well positioned to deliver further progress against our strategic goals and remain confident that we are building the right store portfolio, product and digital capability as we continue to invest for growth”, Mr. Lewis concludes.
Debra-Derieux Matos, Point Franchise ©
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