The English Court is an indisputable economic and social benchmark with More than 75 years of experience in fashion, leisure, home, cosmetics, food, technology… Without wanting to or being able to stop it, it has been forced to give up the comfort of traditional commerce to explore the challenges (and virtues) of new sales channels.
History of El Corte Inglés in eCommerce: the (dubious) first steps
His online journey over the years has been irregular. El Corte Inglés was one of the first to lead electronic commerce in Spain at the end of the 90salthough not with the firmness that it demonstrates these days, trusting the future of the company to its digital strategy.
The entry of El Corte Inglés into eCommerce, during the presidency of Isidoro Álvarez, suffered from conviction, but the economic crisis, the poor results of the company and the arrival in Spain of platforms such as Amazonwhich operate solely online, forced a definitive change in the group’s strategic plan to fight the giants onlineadapt its structure to the new demands of the market and structure its digitization.
Amazon.es: an incentive for El Corte Inglés online
El Corte Inglés had been operating online for a decade, with various proposals… with disparate results. After starting with an eCommerce proposal in which the El Corte Inglés Supermarket had a leading role, in 2001 launched El Club del Gourmet online. So, . In 2005 a website designed to serve the members of its young fashion loyalty card. At that time, the group’s online turnover already exceeded 85 million euros, which motivated .
For 2010 had already made the decision to start selling fashion online with a proposal that, t, «with more than 300 national and international brands, constitutes the largest offer in fashion firms on the internet».
Amazon opens in Spain in September 2011. At that moment . She had just launched a private sales club that incorporates fashion brands, accessories, cosmetics, technology and home.
In 2012, For the first time, El Corte Inglés announces its firm commitment to the electronic commerce and the internationalization of the company through an online store open to new European countries, in addition to Portugal, where it already operates on the Internet, it has maintained different businesses since the end of the 1980s and two department stores, in Lisbon and Porto.
The Internet becomes a fundamental sales channel and the distribution group proposes improve logistics processes, delivery efficiency and its relationship with customers and suppliers. Following the example of the Internet giant, that same year, 2012, it launches a flat rate for shipping costs.
El Corte Inglés is on its way to becoming a benchmark for Spanish e-commerce, taking advantage of the traditional business model (renewal, constant innovation, customer service) and promoting online sales based on the strength of its digital platform, which is growing in number of visits, registered users and specialized stores.
Towards the consolidation of the omnichannel strategy
The promise of internationalization of the brand is strengthened with it, a website that wants to make the brand known outside of Spain and increase business in the European market via Ireland and Holland with fashion items, accessories, footwear, sports, home and gourmet products.
Begins 2014. El Corte Inglés launches new services: Click&Car, which allows you to shop at the online supermarket and pick it up later by car in the car park of the chosen shopping centre; Y Click&Collecta complementary idea that offers the possibility of picking up fashion, home, beauty, cosmetics… at more than 200 El Corte Inglés or Supercor centers.
New functions that link the physical and virtual business, where the online product catalogs, the virtual fitting room and new audiovisual content are now available that seek to provide the best service to online customers, offering them the opportunity to buy any item anywhere 24 hours a day and choose the delivery or collection format that suits you best at all times.
The omnichannel experience will become the main challenge for the distribution group, as stated Dimas Gimenowho acceded to the position of President in September 2014 after the death of Isidoro Álvarez.
His entry, in addition to reflecting the triumph of a rigid hierarchy within the company, led to the development of new sales channels through the Internet and commercial strategies that are committed to strengthening its own network of physical stores as opposed to purely online business models. Coexistence and connection between physical and electronic commerce.
2015/2018: The history of El Corte Inglés in eCommerce enters a stage of modernization, integration and digital transformation
In the following years, it will invest in innovation and new technologies to advance in digital transformationwhich in practice means the modernization and adaptation of the company’s structure to the new needs and demands of society.
After 2015, The English Court seeks stand up to amazon and conquer new markets by taking advantage of omnichannel synergies, offering the same shopping experience in all channels and improving competition in shipping costs.
- New mobile application for your supermarket. Available for online purchases at e Hipercor with the aim of boosting sales in food, a key sector in the online environment and also from the point of view of logistics.
- Creation of new exclusive spaces for fashion brands to present their products online. Following the trend of marketplaces, as of 2015 each firm that requires it obtains its own corner within elcorteingles.es and contributes to the growth of sales. The company has incorporated 200 companies under this new model.
- Click&Express. Before the end of 2015, department stores take a new step forward against rival operators such as Amazon and advertise in 6 major capitals: Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Malaga, Seville and Bilbao. Currently there are 54 cities that enjoy this ultra-fast delivery service.
- . The fashion and accessories firm, created in 2002, launches its own eCommerce in January 2016.
- Renewal of the commercial network. The company allocates 250 million euros to the modernization of physical sales spaces, adapting them to new trends.
- Mobile payment with Samsung Pay. Since July 2017 you can simply, quickly and safely, at no additional cost, by following the steps indicated by the Samsung application.
- New push for digitization. More than 200 fashion, accessories, footwear, sports, home and gourmet products firms make the leap to the world market with the conversion of elcorteingles.eu into and the deployment of its own logistics and operational resources (with the support of international transport operators) to guarantee shipments within 3 to 7 days in the European Union and up to 10 days in the rest of the world.
- Technology and integration. El Corte Inglés announces an investment of 250 million euros in the integration of the Hipercor hypermarkets in its department stores and 100 million more to promote electronic commerce and .
2018: Goodbye, Dimas Gimeno. The era of Jesus Nuño de la Rosa begins
But the stage of Dimas Gimeno at the head of El Corte Inglés it lasted less than he would have liked. After a series of strong controversies with members of the company’s Board of Directors, on June 14, 2018, ECI published a statement announcing the arrival of Jesús Nuño de la Rosa as Group President.
«The Board of Directors considers that a change of leadership is necessary to face the challenges of the future. The extensive experience of Jesús Nuño de la Rosa and his extensive professional career represent a new step in the company’s management professionalization strategy. The new president will rely on Víctor del Pozo as CEO and great expert in the retail business.
Jesus Nuno de la Rosa, who held the position of CEO until January 2020, had spent most of his professional career at Travel The English Court, a company of which he was CEO from 1998 until October 2017 when he was appointed CEO of the Group. In his first statements at the head of the company he explained: «El Corte Inglés is a leading company that has always stood out for its ability to innovate and adapt to new customer needs. We have before us important and exciting challenges for which we have a great team of professionals. We are excited and prepared to win that future”.
2020: El Corte Inglés increases its online sales while registering losses for a value of 2,945 million euros
Without a doubt, 2020 was a fateful year for many companies, being fully within the crisis resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic. Still, starting from this year, a great boom could also be witnessed within the e-commerce market, offering companies an opportunity for growth in this aspect. For this year, El Corte Inglés was an example of these two realities that we have commented on, as it presented an increase in 132% in its online sales, which gave it revenues of 1,800 million euros.
However, apart from the growth in the online aspect, the year was a loss for the company, denoting an overall drop in sales of 30%. In this way, the turnover of 2020 reached 10,432 million euros, presenting a decrease of 31.6% with respect to the previous year of 2019. With this fall, the general debt of the group rose by 560 million, thus reached an estimated 3,811 million euros.
2021: El Corte Inglés expands its offer with new tools for the consumer
Omnichannel has been one of the most present strategies for companies within this new area of digital dominance; This as a means to be able to adapt your physical business to the new trends of digital consumption. Of course, for El Corte Inglés it has not been different, and during the 2021 financial year it launched two new services in its online store. The goal of these services is to offer an experience similar to that present in its physical stores.
The first of these services is a extended catalog or article search engine, which will allow consumers to access the entire range of El Corte Inglés products. This will significantly expand the availability provided to customers of the online store.
On the other hand, the second service is more focused on the direct attention of the consumer and it is the function of Consult the Expert. With this, the retail company intends to offer users personalized and more complete advice to consumers. This in a plane similar to the one that could…
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