Burberry Aligns Strategy with Mobile Traffic Boom

Fashion icon Burberry said 40 percent of digital traffic now comes from a mobile device.

"I think we had more sales in total via a mobile device in this [first] quarter than we did in the whole of the festive quarter last year," noted Carol Fairweather, CFO, in terms of the penetration of mobile sales as a percentage of total digital.

Fairweather continued that all signs are pointing to the fact that the investment Burberry has made and will continue to make in mobile is "absolutely in line with the way in which consumers want to interact with us."

In the first quarter, Burberry's retail sales were up 8 percent underlying and 6 percent comparable sales growth. The company continues to adopt its strategy to adjust to the increasingly important digital traffic.

Fay Dodds, VP, IR, noted collect-in-store is over 20 percent of Burberry's digital sales, while iPads in-store are over 25 percent of digital sales.

Burberry also premiered on Periscope on April 16 with the broadcast of its runway show at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, and saw a record level of social media impressions. Periscope is the new live streaming application owned by Twitter which was launched in March 2015. 

The show featured an encore presentation of Burberry’s fall 2015 collection, which audiences on the Burberry Periscope account had an access all areas pass taking them from their arrival at the iconic venue, to their front row seat to watch the entire show, including real-time content. 

Carol Fairweather, CFO, said the LA event was Burberry's big brand moment for the quarter. "I think we had a record level of something like over 100 million impressions from social on the back of that digital engagement."

Burberry also shared the journey from London to Los Angeles on Snapchat and used Periscope and Snapchat again at the menswear show in June, which Fairweather said was "the best coverage I think we'd ever had in terms of digital engagement."

In terms of sales, Fairweather noted "we can't be precise in terms of what it drives specifically, we talk about digital being an integral part of everything we do, from that initial engagement to the fulfilment at the end. So very important and we had that 6 percent comp growth, so pleased with that for the quarter."

Burberry was also the first luxury brand to sell product through Twitter Buy Now functionality, launched September 2014.