The FT reported last week that Next is pulling back from overseas expansion and stepping up the focus on its online operation.

This comes as no great surprise as the retailer has already proved itself to be an adept multi-channel player. Also, New Look recently stepped up the pressure, saying that it wants to become the number one multi-channel fashion retailer within three years. Earlier this month, it launched its second-generation website.

Online is clearly the future for fashion retailers. The growth of web 2.0 innovations such as rich video and social media means that it has become a great way of engaging with customers. Quite a turnaround. It was only a few years ago that many fashion retailers had no online businesses to speak of, the result of conservatism and a failure to grasp the size of the opportunities on offer. But a change in attitudes was inevitable. To quote Harold Wilson: “He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.”

It’s not everyday that you get to end a retail-related blog with a quote from ‘darling Harold’ (copyright: Alf Garnett)…

After a great deal of hype, Barclaycard has launched its retail rewards scheme, Barclaycard Freedom. The new loyalty programme is available to over eight million cardholders who will be able to earn rewards in shops, restaurants and online outlets across the UK.

Two points to mull over…With the recession still biting and consumers carefully watching their spending, is this the right time to launch such a scheme? In these tough times, to be successful Barclaycard Freedom must deliver value to customers and retailers over and above other loyalty schemes. It’s not an impossible task but neither is it a foregone conclusion, even if Barclaycard does boast a strong brand and cardholder base.

On that note, it will be interesting to see how Barclaycard Freedom impacts on Nectar. Barclaycard says that 30,000 retailers have signed up thus far, but those consumers who do not regularly shop with these companies may be better off with other (more specific, established) offerings. Also, is what’s on offer radically different from what has gone before? Lots of credit card companies have, after all, been offering something similar for years. A case of a new spin on an old idea, perhaps?

I’m enjoying BBC Two’s Inside John Lewis, a three part series about Middle England’s favourite retailer. You can’t go far wrong with one liners like, “In seven days, God made the world and in seven days, John Lewis will make your curtains.”

The last episode goes out this week and one of the standout moments comes with the observation that last year John Lewis Direct produced £330 million in turnover from a team of fewer than 200 people, whereas it required over 2,000 people to generate £300 million from its flagship Oxford Street store. Online is the future but brings with it a number of challenges for this particular retailer. For instance, it prides itself on offering customers a personal service, but how do you achieve that online?

Well worth a watch. You can find the first two episodes here.

Following on from my blog entitled ‘What the hell is cloud computing?’, I’ve just received details of a survey by retail software specialists CTS Retail.

It shows that there appears to be growing interest in cloud computing, on-demand, SaaS or managed services. Around 30 per cent of respondents said they were thinking of moving to retail software packages via the cloud in the next two to three years, making it possible to pay only for what they needed (based either on the number of users, or the level of sales). Over half thought that SaaS would be one of the biggest growth areas in retail IT during the next decade.

However, a number admitted to not really understanding fully the notion of cloud computing. Maybe they’re all just idiots…

You can find further info on the CTS Retail survey here.

A colleague has just passed on this rant by Oracle CEO, Larry Ellison, about cloud computing. It’s from 2008 but still timely, touching, as it does, on the computer industry’s fashion driven tendencies. And highly amusing. My personal favourite quote: “I read these articles and I have no idea what they’re talking about. Maybe I’m an idiot. It’s complete gibberish.”

You can find the rant here.

Can’t wait to watch this one. A US comedy series, iCon, is in development that will satirise Apple supremo, Steve Jobs. It has been described by cable channel Epix as “a savage satire centering on a fictional Silicon Valley CEO whose ego is a study in power and greed.”

The series certainly has an excellent pedigree. It will be directed by Larry Charles, the Seinfeld veteran who also helmed the Borat and Brüno movies. And the writer will be Dan Lyons, a technology consultant for Newsweek who created the fake Steve Jobs blog.

“We are attempting to do nothing less than a modern Citizen Kane,” Larry Charles said in a statement. “A scabrous satire of Silicon Valley and its most famous citizen.”

You can get updates on the project here.

Oasis recently revealed that its iPhone app has been downloaded 24,549 times over a four month period.

As previously mentioned, I’m surprised that more retailers aren’t exploiting the fact that mobiles are a useful tool in joining up the communication between online sites and stores, helping to educate and engage directly with the customer. Apps can be used to tell customers when product is in stock, when promotions are on, when the latest looks have just landed and for price compare and purchasing.

I recently spoke with e-business consultancy Portaltech for a Retail Systems feature on online retail, during which they talked about their Stripeylines product and price compare app. This works with iPhones and a retailer’s barcode information, to make this available to the customer. For example, a customer in HMV could use Stripeylines to scan a CD they want, listen to it through their iPhone, then choose to buy either in-store or online or through another vendor.

This sort of development is a great example of why mobile commerce is shaping up to be an essential marketing tool that all retailers and brands need to embrace. The likes of Oasis are way ahead of the curve in this respect. Yet many others are still not convinced of the viability of the mobile channel. There is no best practice for the less innovative companies to follow at this moment in time and there is an glaring lack of experience. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Passing through Liverpool Street station recently, I came across a HMV Shop in a Box. These contain DVDs and games and are being trialled at train stations and Vue cinemas. In theory, this adds another string to HMV’s multi-channel bow. But in reality, it’s something of a damp squib. I’m all for an innovative vending machine but I can see a couple of problems with these boxes.

Firstly, you have to register before you can buy anything. I wasn’t overly keen on tapping in my personal details as the rush hour crowd flowed by, but did so anyway (purely out of journalistic curiosity, you understand). I then discovered that it takes a while to find the title you want, lacking the personal touch of the High Street store and the interactivity of the website.

A neat idea, then, but in its current form I’ll be surprised if it catches on.

Self-service equals queue busting, right? Not at Marks and Spencers, Finsbury Pavement. The store recently pushed through a major roll-out of self-service checkouts, but rather than busting those tedious queues, it appears to have exacerbated the problem.

Customers want to buy and get out of the store. They don’t want to be kept waiting. It is frustrating and the real killer is that long waiting times become associated with your brand, rendering a repeat visit less likely. Pop along to the Finsbury Pavement branch between 12-2pm and you will be greeted with queues snaking around the store - a long line of unhappy shoppers, bemused and annoyed that they’re being asked to undertake an epic journey just to catch a glimpse of the newfangled checkouts.

I’m a big M&S fan. Their stores are normally well run and highly efficient, but somewhere along the line they’ve got self-checkout wrong at the Finsbury Pavement branch. The machines may well be here to stay, but it’s clear that self-service still carries with it a number of potential pitfalls.

As a follow up to my blog post of 12th February (UK retail far from Twitterrific), good to see Cineworld using its Twitter page this week to request feedback on The Daily Mail/Kiss Ass debate.

For those of you who haven’t come across this story, The Mail has once again worked itself up into a frenzy - this time with a story headlined ‘Jonathan Ross’s wife Jane Goldman causes outrage with film featuring a foul-mouthed 11-year-old assassin’. Said film, based on a comic book series about a boy who decides to become a superhero and the vigilantes he encounters, represents everything that is wrong with modern society. And Ross’s other half is also involved, which makes things even worse. If there’s one thing The Mail hates more than kids who swear and carry guns, it’s Wossy.

By Tweeting on this, Cineworld came across as being on the ball, interested in what its followers had to say and it also raised awareness of a forthcoming release. This Twitter lark is easy when you know how, right?