It just keeps moving upwards. Created in 1996, La Redoute's website accounted for a mere 4 % of the company's sales in 2001. With the development of textile sales on line, things have gathered pace considerably; the website now makes up 50 % of total sales, or 25 % of turnover for the home shopping specialist.

 

La Redoute was quick to centre its multi-channel strategy on internet, and today it is reaping the fruits. The site is constantly re-inventing itself. The latest success is “la minute mode [the fashion minute]” with 50 new garments presented every fortnight to keep abreast of fashion trends. “Fashion addicts” of every stripe love it and ask for more. They also loved being able to create their own avatar figure by feeding in their measurements and hair colour so as to try on clothes before unsheathing the credit card.
La Redoute is more and more openly putting fashion up front. One sign is its changing design, which makes use of the space left by a reduction in the number of sales operations in order to give more room for fashion. Rich in graphics and images, and very aspirational, the site's new fashion attitude is typified by the brand's tagline “You haven't finished playing with fashion”.

 

Guillaume Darrousez, La Redoute's marketing and e-commerce Manager, is clear on the brand's ambitions: “We want to make Laredoute.fr the leading fashion portal”.

To achieve this, La Redoute is putting the product at the heart of its message. Then come the tools which simplify the web user's access to the information. Here you have the quickzoom which lets you look closely at the product without changing page; there you have the table showing availability of sizes and colours of a given model; another useful feature is the zones where visitors can leave their expert comments and share their shopping experiences.

 

This month, La Redoute will be adding another layer to its fashion approach by integrating the whole content of the web site collections-laredoute.fr into the main site. It includes behind-the-scenes looks at fashion in photos and videos; interviews with designers and personalities from the world of needles and podiums; top advice from house stylists.

Is it surprising then, that the fashionistas are all hooked?
Laredoute.fr, voted best fashion site in 2009, who wants to bet?