New Look secures 30 million pounds to fund digital growth plan

High street fashion retailer New Look, one of the UK’s leading womenswear brands in the 18-44 sector, has secured a 30-million-pound investment from its shareholders to accelerate its digital transformation and optimise its online experience for customers.

The retailer said the significant investment would “supercharge” its digital growth as it believes the “opportunity is clear” to capture a bigger slice of the UK’s online womenswear market, which it states stands at 4.3 billion pounds.

New Look, which has more than 300 stores across the UK, is already in a market-leading position in several key categories, including number one in dresses, outerwear, footwear and denim, according to Kantar’s market share data, and it has more than 10 million engaged customers.

The new capital will allow the retailer to continue its investment in elevating its digital capabilities, building on its work in the last five years upgrading its website and app, as well as creating a proprietary Enterprise Data Platform with a leading tech stack, and cultivating a social media community of 7 million followers.

The funds have been earmarked to enhance customer personalisation, optimising its app and online shopping journey, as well as cement market dominance and elevate its store network to underpin its digital initiatives to double digital orders from 500 million pounds to 1 billion pounds by 2030 and achieve 10 percent online market share by FY28.

New Look looking to reach 1 billion pounds in online sales by 2030 with new investment

Helen Connolly, chief executive of New Look, said in a statement: "New Look is an iconic British brand. Our goal is to be the number one online destination for feel-good fashion, powered by our loyal customer base and proven digital model. This new capital injection means we can ramp up our digital operations, enhance customer service, and drive growth and achieve our goal of 1-billion-pound online demand by 2030.

"Our customer is at the heart of everything we do. We know them inside out - what they love, how they shop, and what inspires them. This new funding is a clear endorsement of our compelling strategy. It will allow us to get even closer to our growing customer base, giving them more of what they want: trend-led, high-quality fashion and a seamless shopping experience. By combining our digital expertise with our UK store network, we’re creating a shopping journey that’s smarter, faster, and more personalised. I have never been more excited about the future of New Look."

To achieve its ambitious targets, New Look said the funding will be “strategically deployed” across four key growth areas – data-driven innovation, technology investments, loyalty and engagement, and customer migration.

New Look shareholders inject 30 million pounds into continued transformation

At the heart of its digital transformation will be the expansion of New Look’s proprietary Enterprise Data Platform to deliver hyper-personalised shopping experiences. This cutting-edge technology uses data and AI to provide New Look’s customers with personalised marketing and a tailored shopping experience, leading to higher satisfaction and lower return rates. The retailer is looking to enhance insights, decision-making, and customer personalisation by leveraging real-time analytics to improve supply chain speed and efficiency and anticipate customer trends.

New Look is also looking to optimise the app and online shopping journey by improving search and product discovery to make it easier for customers and streamlining the checkout experience, improving the customer journey to drive sales growth.

This will sit alongside leveraging New Look’s loyalty and engagement by using AI-driven insights to refine product development, ensuring collections “continue to delight customers with trend-led, great value and high-quality design”. The high street retailer also added it will be introducing new digital initiatives for its loyalty programme, Club New Look, to offer members exclusive rewards, products and promotions to enhance engagement and loyalty.

The final growth area will be to streamline and elevate the customer journey by optimising its store network to underpin digital initiatives in selected retail locations, where the customer journey is streamlined and strengthened with in-store digital engagement. This area of focus will draw learnings from its recent upgrades to flagship stores in Manchester and Bluewater, where digital enhancements have delivered double-digit like-for-like sales growth. The Bluewater concept store features New Look’s first omni-hub space, integrating new initiatives to streamline the customer journey, including digital inspiration, showrooms and displays.