Shop Direct is to merge its online and catalogue brand Isme, which sells goods from womenswear to electricals, into its Very brand at the end of the month.
Very, which stocks womenswear, furniture and homewares, has annual revenues of £800m and receives over a million visits a day.
Shop Direct said the merger follows the migration of Woolworths.com into Very in June and K&Co.com into Littlewoods.com in July.
The retailer said the earlier migrations “have exceeded expectations in terms of both number of customers shopping and amount of sales”. It added that it expects this third merger to be a “smooth one”.
Shop Direct chief executive Alex Baldock said: “We’re now powered by two engines, Very.co.uk and Littlewoods.com. Freeing up investment tied up in our past means we can turbo-charge these two power brands and accelerate towards our future as a world-class digital retailer.”
Catalogue decline
In June, Shop Direct revealed it would ditch its Littlewoods catalogue after more than 80 years as it reflects the shift to online shopping.
Demand for the catalogue has been in steady decline and, as a result, Littlewoods sent out only 300,000 copies of its last issue, compared with a print run of five million in 2010 and 25 million in its heyday.
At the time, Baldock described the move away from the catalogue as a “big step” in the retail group’s transformation.
He added that the company wants to focus investment on areas where there is greater customer demand and, as a result, will focus on developing an easy-to-navigate online experience that is tailored to the individual customer.
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