Charming Shoppes is on track to become a $200 million web retailer

Now that Charming Shoppes Inc. has fully completed its acquisition of Crosstown Traders Inc., the company expects to dramatically increase its e-commerce business, top company executives told Wall Street analysts in a recent briefing.

Today, e-commerce represents about 3%, $82.6 million, of Charming Shoppes` 2006 fiscal year sales of $2.75 billion, CEO Dorrit J. Bern and senior vice president of finance, strategy and business development Steven Wishner told attendees at the recent Piper Jaffray annual consumer conference in New York City. But now that Charming Shoppes has completed its acquisition of Crosstown Traders and operates a bigger web channel, e-commerce will likely reach 5%, or $200 million, of total sales that are expected to reach $4 billion within three years. “E-commerce sales have nearly doubled in each of the last three years,” Bern says.

Bern says e-commerce sales are growing because the company has a more integrated structure to support direct marketing. “We are utilizing improved systems support and integrated customer service,” he says.

Charming Shoppes, an apparel retailer specializing in women`s plus-size apparel and No. 159 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide to Retail Web Sites, completed its acquisition of Crosstown Traders, a direct marketer of women`s apparel, footwear, accessories and specialty gifts, in June 2005.