Tesco to sell fashion online

Britain's biggest retailer will be the first supermarket to sell clothes on the internet with up to 300 pieces available from the end of October 2007. Currently, it has 500,000 registered customers on its website, www.Clothingattesco.com, but at present they can only browse the merchandise rather than buy it online.

Tesco's head of marketing for clothing, Sean Murray, said: "Not all our customers have access to our clothing ranges in their local stores and many of them have told us how much they would like to be able to buy Tesco clothing online. The best of our clothing ranges will be available through Tesco Direct.

This comes on the heels of the latest Tesco Direct sales report, which have soared by 25% compared with the same period last year, since the launch of a 1,000-page catalogue earlier this month.

Selling clothes on line has not been a huge hit for mainstream stores so far and there must be doubts that Tesco can make a success of it. Customers will inevitably want to return a great number of items that are bought over the web. It is not yet clear whether customers who buy Tesco clothes on the internet will be able to return them to their local store, or have to parcel them up and put them in the post.

The main online competition will come from Marks & Spencer, which has upgraded its website in partnership with the experts at Amazon.