redcats.com
In fashion and home decoration, Redcats Group has united international and multi-channel brands, leaders on their respective markets, capitalising on opportunities presented by the Web. Through its 15 brands, Redcats Group retails products primarily in the areas of apparel and home furnishings and appliances. The company is active in 29 countries. Combining a multi-channel retail approach using catalogues, Internet sites and specialty stores, redcats group provides customers with permanent access and greater responsiveness.
Redcats Group has a portfolio of prestigious brands. Whether specialists in a specific segment or multi-specialists serving a wider audience, they develop new products and services, while constantly seeking targeted product ranges to better anticipate customer expectations and meet their demands.
The Group is leader in France and Portugal in the B-to-C home shopping market. It has 35 million active customers worldwide, receives over 31 million visitors per month on all its Internet sites and distributes over 100 million parcels each year.
European Brands
La Redoute offers a "French Touch" in 24 countries and its apparel offering is retailed through its multi-specialist catalogues and specialist catalogues such as Anne Weyburn (for maturer active women) or Taillissime (for men and women’s plus sizes). The brand also includes home furnishings and decoration, with specialised catalogues such as AM.PM., Solutions Maison or So’Home. La Redoute is number one in France for fashion and home decoration Internet sales. With an average of 5.5 million individual visitors per month during 2007, laredoute.fr is the 3rd most visited French e-commerce site. The Internet as a distribution channel now represents 48.6% of the brand’s home shopping revenue.
The brand also posted solid growth internationally, representing 25% of its 2007 revenue, primarily driven by Greece, Switzerland and Norway. La Redoute’s development was pursued with its new Russian and Italian subsidiaries.
La maison de Valérie specialises in household equipment. While maintaining a positioning geared towards credit accessibility thanks to payment facility and attractive prices, La maison de Valérie has renewed its offering based on the lifestyles and needs of its customers and is featuring customer rapport in its communications.
A children’s specialist, Vertbaudet publishes the catalogues "Histoires d’enfants" for ready-to-wear, "Histoires de chambres" for furniture, decoration and bed linen, and "VB2U" (pronounced VB to you), which is exclusively devoted to 10-15 year-olds. In 2007, the brand decided to enhance its nursery offering featured in "Histoires d’enfants" so as to position itself as a segment specialist. Vertbaudet directly operates 39 boutiques and is present in 8 countries.
A multi-channel brand, Cyrillus publishes its catalogues in 4 languages (French, English, Japanese and German) and has a network of 52 directly operated boutiques around the world, 10 franchised stores in Japan in addition to websites. On the occasion of its 30th anniversary, the brand with the "classic, modern and stylish" positioning, passed on a new message this year: "The beauty of family life".
In 2007, the brand Somewhere decided to defend its positioning and "casual chic" offering, by developing a new visual image and store concept. The brand pursued the expansion of its network and now has 22 boutiques in France.
Daxon offers a well-being and home range - which also includes the specialised products of Edmée (accessible casual wear positioning) and Celaia (collection for active women over the age of 45). Daxon is present in France, Belgium and Great Britain.
Ellos, the brand leader in Scandinavia, offers an accessible and contemporary line for the entire family, with 4 of is own brands: "Sara Kelly" (for active women), "CW" (for women seeking the authentic look), "Joelle" (for a trendy and original style) and "e-basics" (for men, women and children). As part of a simplified and more focused brand portfolio, 3 collection concepts complete the Ellos offering: Josefssons focuses on the modern young woman, Jotex, a home linen specialist, completes the textile product line and lastly, Enjoy distributes films and music.
Outside of Sweden, Ellos is active in Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Norway, the Netherlands and Iceland. The brand’s Internet sales continued to grow sharply, accounting for 50.7% of home shopping revenue in 2007.
American Brands
In the United States, Redcats USA has established itself as the specialist in the home shopping "plus size" market, through 4 brands: Jessica London, Roaman’s and Woman Within (previously Lane Bryant Catalog) which have developed a line of women’s wear and accessories and KingSize, which offers men’s casual collections. At the end of October 2007, Redcats Group finalised the public offering launched by United Retail Group, a US company and owner of the Avenue brand.
With its strong brand image, Avenue adds to the leadership of Redcats Group on the very promising "plus size" market, by attracting a younger clientele that likes fashion and has a slightly higher income than the Redcats Group traditional US customers. The network of 492 stores complements the existing distribution channels, thus presenting significant development potential. Moreover, these sales outlets are spread across 37 states including California, Florida and Texas, where Redcats Group had little presence. The Avenue collections will also be distributed on OneStopPlus.com, which already combines 4 other "outsize" American brand offerings and the BrylaneHome line.
The brands of the Redcats USA "sports and leisure" activity comprise The Sportsman’s Guide, the leader in on-line and catalogue sales of sports and leisure articles and its subsidiary The Golf Warehouse, specialising in on-line sales of golf equipment. These 2 brands posted excellent growth in 2007, with significant Internet sales for The Sportsman’s Guide, and substantial sales momentum for the new softball and baseball segments of The Golf Warehouse.
Finally, the BrylaneHome brand, devoted to home furnishings and decoration, is being repositioned to focus on a more selective offering with greater added value, combining the Home and Kitchen collections.
Overall, in 2007, the American brands earned 40% of their home shopping revenue through the Internet.
Strategy
Redcats Group pursued its comprehensive transformation from a national group of mail-order companies driven by credit and services to a multi-channel group of international brands.
In 2007, Redcats Group pursued the major overhaul of its activities, and the active management of its portfolio by banking on its leading home shopping brands and developing its "branded retail" brands. Accordingly, in the United States, 2007 was marked by the successful consolidation of The Sportsman’s Guide and The Golf Warehouse acquired in 2006, and the acquisition of the Avenue brand, enabling the development of a store strategy to reinforce the Redcats Group home shopping "plus size" leadership. Due to the decline of the Agency model and substantial competition in terms of the apparel market and the credit offering, Redcats UK has gradually ceased the activities of the Empire Stores brand in order to focus on its direct home shopping brands Vertbaudet, La Redoute and Daxon in Great Britain.
At the same time, in the United States, the Group initiated the sale of the "Missy" division brands (Chadwick’s and Metrostyle) - which did not hold leading positions in a highly competitive women’s apparel market - to concentrate on its "Plus size" and "Sports and Leisure" activities.
Creativity is a major strategic focus for Redcats Group, which continues to bolster its product development teams and broaden the appeal of its in-house brands, which represent 80% of its apparel offer. As part of their endeavour, the brands also invite designers to visit their collections each season and, in addition, there are regular appearances of well-known personalities who play their own part in boosting brand appeal.
Redcats Group operates via 3 distribution channels (Internet sites, stores and catalogues), providing the customer with constant access and greater responsiveness. The development of the Internet continues as it proves to be an increasingly powerful channel for all brands in all geographical areas.
Backed by proven know-how in home shopping management and customer relations as well as a logistics infrastructure for parcel deliveries at competitive prices, Redcats Group has developed a vast network of over 60 e-commerce sites. Through new offerings and innovative services, e-commerce has renewed and enhanced relations forged with customers.
The increased use of the Internet as a sales channel at Redcats Group was confirmed in 2007 by several successfully launched innovations, which have enabled its brands to differentiate themselves on the Internet and be rewarded for their efforts on such occasions as the "Favor’i du e-commerce", where Internet users voted laredoute.fr as "Best site of 2007" and "Best textile and apparel site".
Finally, Redcats Group improved the efficiency of its industrial IT platform, Millena, so as to accelerate and secure the development of on-line sales. In 2007, revenue generated by the Internet amounted to €1,445 million, an increase of 26.8% compared to 2006.
The Internet sales channel represents 42.5% of home shopping revenue in 2007, compared to 34.2% in 2006.
The Internet drives the development of a product range which is renewed at a pace similar to that of the specialised fashion chains. Due to significant sourcing efforts, Redcats Group is now able to import 64.5% of its offering without an intermediary, which in particular improves its product availability. Redcats Group has also endeavoured to reduce delivery times by devoting particular care to customer delivery for residents in France. The Group is also continuing to develop its service range with the creation of "Relais Colis® Services" areas equipped with touch screen terminals, so as to accelerate parcel returns, refunds and order exchanges.
The store network completes the catalogues and Internet. In 2007, La Redoute launched and developed "So’Redoute" in France, with 200 m² surface areas located in city centres and shopping centres entirely devoted to women’s fashion and accessories, and Somewhere has unveiled a new store concept based on a renovation of sales areas. Cyrillus, Vertbaudet and Somewhere continue to further extend and target their geographical coverage. In the US, the Group has 492 stores in 37 states, thanks to the acquisition of Avenue in the fourth quarter of 2007.
Redcats Group has successfully developed its brands internationally either via a direct presence, or by capitalising on infrastructures and resources already in place within the Group. La Redoute is established in 24 countries and generates nearly 25% of its revenue internationally, Vertbaudet operates in 8 countries and generates nearly 19% of its revenue internationally, Cyrillus is established in 5 countries and generates more than 20% of its revenue internationally, and Daxon is established in 3 countries and generates 24% of its revenue internationally.
International development can also take the form of an acquisition, such as United Retail Group in the US.
In 2007, Redcats Group generated revenue from continuing operations of €3,765 million, up 1.2% in actual terms and 2.2% on a comparable basis. Recurring operating income from continuing operations stood at €187 million, which demonstrates the company’s ability to withstand an extremely competitive environment.
Fiscal year 2007 was marked by efforts in terms of creation for women’s apparel, a category in which Redcats Group has posted satisfactory sales performances for most of its brands. Redcats Group has also reinforced its Internet leadership in apparel and minor decoration thanks to numerous technological and commercial innovations while pursuing the development of its activities internationally.
In 2008, the Group will continue to focus the portfolio on its leading brands as started in 2007. It expects to accelerate the development of its store channel, develop its activities internationally by reinforcing the positions gained in the various countries where it is established and consolidating its Internet leadership in fashion and decoration.
Key figures for Redcats Group
- 3,765 € million in revenue in 2007
- 187 € million in recurring operating income in 2007
- 22,161 employees at the end of 2007
- More than 60 e-commerce sites
- Nearly 600 stores in France and internationally
BREAKDOWN OF 2007 REVENUE BY SALES FORMAT
BREAKDOWN OF 2007 REVENUE BY PRODUCT CATEGORY
BREAKDOWN OF 2007 REVENUE BY GEOGRAPHICAL AREA
Redcats brands
European brands are :
- La Redoute
- La maison de Valérie
- Vertbaudet
- Cyrillus
- Somewhere
- Daxon
- Ellos
- Josefssons
- Jotex
- Enjoy
American brands are :
- Jessica London
- Roaman's
- Woman Within
- KingSize
- Avenue
- The Sportsman's Guide
- The Golf Warehouse
- BrylaneHome