A few days ago my front page greeting on the Mintel reports website was some analysis for M&S and ASOS sales – why is the latter doing so well while M&S seems to be stuck in a rut with their sales?
The report summarized it as a thing of demographics – the fact that ASOS is more popular than M&S because they aim their clothing towards a younger audience, not just due to the fact that they’re an online retailer and that’s currently the way forward these days. That and to add the fact that they have better-looking clothes that resemble the ones on Net-a-Porter or even Neiman Marcus and others for a lot less. The Mintel report observed that credit card borrowing is at an all-time high and people are using them to pay mortgages so they’ve ran out of funds for buying on the high-street, hence the “gloom” in the UK. But the ASOS audience is the last to be hit by the downturn because they don’t have any mortgages to repay or any obligations so they can happily spend, spend, spend.
This makes me wonder how many people (with financial obligations) borrow to support their lifestyle – because it’s never the case of giving up when you’ve reached a certain status. That is, if you feel the need to worry about things even more! Something tells me it must be quite bad.
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mihai said
Well, to my knowledge, borrowing is the lifestyle in UK. I almost know no-one not to have at least 1 credit card.
Is the Mintel report taking into account only the clothing department from M&S or the entire business? Because if the report takes into account the entire M&S business, then the results are inconclusive, as ASOS has no other business but clothing.
M&S suffered a lot on the banking side (in my opinion).