ASOS’s soaring profits coincide with company named as UK’s most reputable fashion retailer

ASOS’s 37% rise in annual profits after strong growth in UK, US and European markets – announced today by the British online retailer – is closely correlated to the company being named the most reputable in its sector.

ASOS topped the Reputation Institute’s UK RepTrak ranking of high-street fashion companies’ reputations amongst the UK general public, having achieved an ‘excellent’ reputation score of 80.4 out of 100.

The online only retailer was the only company in the fashion retail sector to achieve a score over 80 with a strong performance across the seven dimensions of reputation (Products & Services, Leadership, Innovation, Governance, Citizenship, Performance and Workplace). The highest scores were achieved in innovation and leadership, and even perceptions of citizenship, an area where others in the industry have fallen down, were high at 71.5 out of 100. Having a strong reputation within a sector in which many companies are struggling has allowed ASOS to consistently improve financially.

Reputation Institute’s research demonstrates that companies with strong reputations have outperformed the FTSE100 Index by a significant margin since 2009 (see graph below).

The RepTrak system measures a company’s ability to deliver on stakeholder expectations across the seven key rational dimensions of reputation: products and services, innovation, workplace, governance, citizenship, leadership and performance.Companies are ranked on a score from 0-100 based on their overall reputation, and are grouped as Excellent (80+), Strong (70-79), Average (60-69), Weak (40-59) or Poor (Below 40).The 2016 rankings for high-street fashion retailers operating in the UK stand as below:

The reputation ranking

Why reputation matters

Reputation Institute’s research reveals that reputation drives business results. The better the reputation, the more support a company gets. For companies with an average reputation, only 12% would definitely buy the products; this climbs to 28% if the reputation is strong, but increases to 76% if the reputation is excellent. At present, out of all high street fashion companies measured in the UK, only ASOS sits in this category.

In the UK, consumers must consider companies’ reputations “Excellent” in order to have more than 50% of those surveyed claim that they would say something positive about a company, recommend its products, trust it to do the right thing, welcome it into the local community, and work for or invest in it.