Fashion specialist Asos positions itself as a “global fashion destination for 20-somethings” and generally executes that ambition consummately.

The etailer generated a 37% rise in continuing profit last year – although pre-tax performance was hit by exceptional costs – and group sales climbed 26%.

Some startling numbers illuminate the secrets of the etailer’s success, and hold lessons for other retailers.

Active customer numbers climbed 25% last year, when order frequency rose 4% and average basket value 3%.

Why? There are some clear reasons. Asos adds about 4,000 new styles per week to its site, and introduced 233 new brands last year. That ensures the constant freshness that its fashion-hungry customers demand.

“To satisfy the appetite for something different, we also work with brands to develop exclusive ranges, including unique colours and styles as well as exclusive collections”

Asos

Not all retailers can deliver such a constant stream of newness, but all can ask themselves what opportunity there is to increase the flow and so help keep customers coming back frequently.

Almost 60% of Asos’s offer is exclusive. The etailer reported: “To satisfy the appetite for something different, we also work with brands to develop exclusive ranges, including unique colours and styles as well as exclusive collections.”

The benefits of exclusivity have always been recognised in retail. Retailers such as department store groups have struck exclusive product deals to protect themselves from the incursion of Amazon and other etailers into their categories.

The fact that Asos sets such store by such an approach shows its value online as well as in a bricks-and-mortar context.

Users of the Asos app typically shop it eight times a month, spending 70 minutes online

Retailers like to stock the well-known brands that shoppers expect, but the more they can make their offer unique, the more they improve their chances of competing across channels.

Users of the Asos app typically shop it eight times a month, spending 70 minutes online in the process. Such usage is driven by fashion newness and value prices, but also spotlights Asos’s skill at making things easy for shoppers.

In the same way that its fashions are always new, so is Asos’s deployment of consumer technology. Last year it launched a new iOS mobile app, with features such as Spotlight search and 3D touch.

Mobile now accounts for 66% of Asos’s traffic and 51% of orders.

It is easy to forget that fashion was once seen as one of the least likely retail categories to take off online because shoppers would always want to touch and feel clothes.

Mobile now accounts for 66% of Asos’s traffic and 51% of orders

Asos has shown that this was not the case, so other retailers should be checking out its mobile innovations and asking whether their own capabilities are all they should be.

Customer service is often cited as a differentiator between retailers, and here once again Asos’s stats show how it should be done. The etailer responds to customer emails within one hour, social media contact within 15 minutes and phone calls within 30 seconds.

Other retailers, especially those whose reputations are built upon customer service, should ask whether they are doing all they can to meet the ever higher expectations of consumers.

Finally, Asos continues to invest. Last year the sum was £87m and in the current year it expects to increase that to between £120m and £140m in capabilities such as technology and logistics.

Asos is certainly not the only retailer to be doing well at present, but the success reflected in its numbers make the business one from which others – online or bricks-and-mortar – can pick up good ideas.