By Martin Vedris
MELBOURNE: Online retail store, Catch of the Day, has reported increasing sales in the current stagnant retail climate that has seen sales slowing at traditional retailers like Harvey Norman.
Online retailer, Catch of the Day celebrated its birthday last week with an online sale that the company managing director, Gabby Leibovich says, “generated massive amount of viewers to become Australia’s most watched internet department store on the day”.
Catch of the Day sells one product per day at heavily reduced prices. It operates like a clearance centre because it sells large quantities of one product per day. While it offers a broad range of products across many product categories, the site tends to sell a lot of consumer electronics products like laptops, LCD TVs, storage drives, PlayStation 2 consoles, Wii consoles, cordless phones, GPS units and digital cameras.
“Catch of the Day and its sister site Daily Deals are trading to full capacity, even though the mood in the retail market is very low,” said Leibovich.
“Despite difficult economic conditions, we believe there are significant opportunities for growth in the coming year.”
Leibovich says that internet retail will continue to grow, particularly in tough economic times, because he says consumers will increasingly look for bargains and opportunities to save money on purchases, and suppliers may also need to clear slow moving stock.
“The economic change that has occurred in the last month has actually helped Catch of the Day raise profits by being able to purchase more quality deals from suppliers short on cash,” he said.
“Consumers are deserting the traditional retail chain and more and more of the spending dollar is being shifted to the internet. A lot of the retailers are recording slower sales with massive pressures on margins, while trading for us is at an all time high, with sales increasing regularly over the past two years at a rate of 15 per cent a month.”