The channel will relaunch at the end of the year with new branding, graphics and studio sets.
Two weeks ago, the group overhauled its main web site, Idealworld.tv, to make it easier for customers to navigate. Before the relaunch, online sales accounted for around 24 per cent of the group’s business.
Chief executive Andrew Fryatt said that, by the end of the year, online sales across the group should consistently account for 30 per cent of turnover.
The retailer will also relaunch its Create and Craft web site in the next two weeks.
“We are still a maturing business and there is plenty for us to do,” said Fryatt.
This month, Ideal will be the first shopping channel to launch on the BT Vision service, which is accessed by a Freeview box that plugs into customers’ broadband connections. It also hopes to benefit from the digital switchover, which will increase the number of viewers receiving its channels by 18 per cent by 2012.
In the first nine weeks of this year, group sales rose 6.3 per cent. Fryatt is confident that the business will achieve analysts’ forecasts of 8 per cent sales growth this year. He said: “My view is that we will do it, but in the present climate it is difficult to be too bullish.”
Moving Ideal’s customer-service call centre back to the UK from India in October will enable the business to become customer service-driven rather than sales-led, Fryatt added.
Separately, the firm promoted head of buying and merchandising Pamela Aujla to its board last week as commercial director.
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