London, 5 July 2010 - House of Fraser, the UK and Ireland’s more than 160 year old premium department store, is launching new multi-channel initiatives in response to findings of a customer cardholders’ shopping habits survey to push internet sales to cover 15% of the total group’s.

www.houseoffraser.co.uk

House of Fraser’s transactional website, launched in September 2007 has grown in excess of 100% year on year as far as internet sales of its 650 brands are concerned.

House of Fraser will introduce a new service called ‘Buy and Collect’ in September; an opportunity for customers to collect items they have ordered online from their local House of Fraser store, supported by a concierge-style service, appeasing the wishes of over half of those surveyed. Multi-channel customers in fact spend twice as much at House of Fraser than those who only shop in store.

The decision to introduce this initiative is supported by the findings from a survey of over 1,400 House of Fraser cardholder customers in April 2010 that revealed that over two thirds of them used the website with an intention to buy in store.

Supporting pilot initiatives include; ordering in store- sales assistants place orders online on behalf of customers if the required products are unavailable in store- and a same day delivery service to those living within the M25. International deliveries will be implemented later this year.

Responding to this now “ubiquitous customer behaviour” is a “key growth driver” for the business, Robin Terrell, Executive Director for Multi-Channel and International at House of Fraser, comments. The store has the opportunity in the next three years for internet sales to represent over 15% of the £1.25 billion total Group sales.