Nick Robertson, the chief executive of online retailer ASOS, feels the increasing popularity of online shopping will enable the company to sustain its stellar growth despite increasing evidence of a decline in consumer confidence in the UK.

“In the last five years, we have seen 77% compound growth. In the next two years we are confident of growing further,” Robertson told ShareCast.

“There is much more of a migration to online shopping. Retail analysts Verdict Research said that online spend amounts to 4% of total retail shopping and by 2010 that could rise to 10%,” he added.

It is one of the reasons why ASOS has continued to register growth despite the challenging market conditions, which have hit traditional ‘bricks and mortar’ retailers like Debenhams recently.

Underlying profits surged 176% to £8.25m in the year to March 31 on a 90% increase in revenues to £81m. Pre-tax profits were 117% better at £7.31m. Sales in the 13 weeks to June 27 were up 95%, it added.

In May 2008, ASOS had 3.4m unique visitors to its web site, a 60% increase year on year and currently it has 1.65m registered users.

The group is increasing its brand offering to pull in more customers: “We have 255 brands on the site and that should increase to 640 by Autumn/Winter 08," said Robertson, who admitted that Topshop was one of a number of high street brands ASOS is currently speaking to.

ASOS is the second most visited website in the UK clothing and apparel category, after Next, but Robertson said analysts believe it can surpass Next in the next 12 months.

It recently moved to its new 158,250 square feet facility at Hemel Hempstead and believes its capacity will satisfy annual sales of approximately £350m. It is also hoping to improve its delivery system, though a full analysis of how much investment will be needed has not yet been carried out.

Investments such as these have been the reason why it is yet to pay any dividends. “We are investing in the business. We want to be a lot bigger than we are now and that will require investment,” said Robertson, who said next year the dividend payment will be under review.

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