With sales of US$464 million (£252.5 million) in 2007, the retailer claims to be the largest speciality retailer of big and tall men’s apparel and, up until now, its presence in Europe has been limited to a single London store.
Initially, it has launched sites for its mid-market Casual Male XL brand in the UK, France, Holland, Germany, Italy and Spain. The launch of sites in these countries for its upmarket Rochester brand is imminent, and the retailer plans to extend its web presence to cover the whole of the European Union within the next couple of years.
Casual Male Retail Group chief executive Dennis Hernreich said that the company is using the web to experiment in Europe, and he thinks there is a significant opportunity. He said: “Casual Male Retail has US$450 million annual sales and we think that the market in Europe is two thirds the size of the US. How long it will take to gain market share is difficult to quantify, but we would definitely expect sales to be in the millions in the next 12 months.”
He continued: “We wanted to first get a bit more experience within the EU in terms of tastes, styles and sizes. This is a relatively low-risk way to do that.”
He added that the multichannel strategy would become clearer in the next 12 to 18 months, but it could include a few more European stores and catalogues.
The expansion has been carried out in partnership with e-commerce fulfilment company GSI Commerce. Product is being shipped to a site in Germany, where GSI will fulfil European orders from.
Casual Male Retail Group operates more than 500 stores in the US. Hernreich said that its growing direct business already comprises about 20 per cent of sales.
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