Mr. Stephen Sealey:

Online strategy, for me, is to invest and play catch-up very fast. We started our online journey in October 2013. We put beauty products online, a large slice of our business, and they are doing reasonably well. We have added other categories such as shoes, sunglasses and accessories which are also showing good promise. Our initial investment was €1 million and I have decided to invest a further €1 million in accelerating our presence online. My ambition is that by October this year half of the products we sell in the store will be available online. We are fighting the offshore Internet retailers, but I am confident that we can succeed because we can offer a better delivery proposition than they can. If one orders online from the United Kingdom, delivery typically takes three or four days. By this autumn we will be able to offer same day delivery for a premium charge or a next day delivery charge. We are fighting and must own that space. Coming to it late was not bad because we have the latest technology. It is fully responsive and works on the telephone and every device and, of course, we can learn from where other people have failed.

With regard to Dundrum and Blanchardstown shopping centres, what I would call our lower middle market sales are going there. The top of our business, the designer business, is only available in Dublin, although we would be happy to ship pieces to Dundrum. The middle market is a very successful and growing part of our business and the demographic is typically the 30 to 40 year old, people who have a young family and are choosing to shop in the shopping centres. It is an easier and more convenient experience for them.

The Deputy asked about our strategy. It is to make our store an absolute destination. I should be charging a consultancy fee for this, particularly as my colleagues are present. As a first step, we are in the middle of a spend of €8.5 million on the ground floor of the store to refurbish it and open new boutiques for luxury brands. Many of these brands are only available in Ireland through Brown Thomas; therefore, one need not travel to London or Paris but come to Brown Thomas and buy them from us. We must then think of what we must do into the future. Our view is that we should invest more in services, things one cannot get online. We have a big beauty business and one can do a great deal in developing it further in terms of services, spa treatments and so forth. The other thing we can offer is innovation. Not a day goes by when we do not have a buyer on an aeroplane going somewhere to look at something new. It might not just be a new brand of clothes; it could be anything. We must look to the future. We start stocking various technology items before Christmas which are not products we normally trade. We must add excitement in a never ending quest for newness.

To sum it up, it involves investment, making sure we are a destination, looking to services and experiences that cannot be replicated online and relentless innovation and newness all the time.