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Next to become online host for other brands via ‘Total Platform’ service

By Huw Hughes

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Fashion

Next is planning an ambitious expansion that will see the British fashion giant become an online host for other brands.

The retailer’s CEO Simon Wolfson told the Telegraph that the company has been “quietly” building a platform over the past year that will allow it to run other fashion brands’ websites and back-end operations.

Brands will then pay Next a fixed percentage of sales for the service, called Total Platform.

According to the Telegraph, Next has already tested the platform via a separate website for upmarket children’s clothes, called Little Label. It has also reportedly signed an unnamed retailer, turning over around 30 million pounds via the service.

“The website will have their URL, it will look and feel like their website, they will design it, they will have creative control over it, but it will link into all the other elements of our platform in exactly the same way as our own website does,” Wolfson told the Telegraph.

“What that means is, not only will we run their website, but we will also do all their warehousing, distribution, returns, call centre work, customer credit, international sites, we will do absolutely everything that is involved with selling to customers.”

Next to launch new Total Platform service

Wolfson, who is known as an ambitious and forward-thinking force in British retail, is betting on the platform in a landscape where more and more brands are looking to launch or reinforce their online presence.

He continued: “In five years’ time you may look back and say ‘I remember that Total Platform’ business and it may have come to nothing other than provide one client with a great business. On the other hand, it could be one of those ideas that in five years’ time people will look back and go, ‘oh my gosh, that was an important moment’.

“Everyone was worrying about coronavirus and no one noticed the launch of this service, but this is a ground-breaking operation in the UK that could be important to the group.”

The news comes after the company announced last week the launch of its new The Beauty Hall format in five shuttered Debenhams’ sites.

Photo credit: Next image gallery

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