Web sales boost from recommendations for Urban Outfitters

Web retailers can take encouragement at the sales performance enjoyed by Urban Outfitters.

The firm's commitment to providing an engaging online shopping experience has paid off, highlighting the potential available in the online marketplace, Internet Retailer reports.

Urban Outfitter tried to recreate the experience of its bricks and mortar stores online, but it proved inefficient.

Instead, the company began using software that makes product recommendations, and saw sales based on this advice jump by 700 per cent.

"Within that first 90 days the product basically paid for itself with the incremental revenue we got," Holly Devine, the retailer's director of e-commerce, explained to the website.

She went on to reveal that 27 per cent of the site's visitors now click on a link to a recommendation, while these generate around seven per cent of all sales.

Rival retailer Sears.com recently announced it is looking to drive web traffic by offering free shipping in the build-up to Christmas.