The London Furniture Show

The Next retail chain was launched in February 1982 and the first store opened with an exclusive coordinated collection of stylish clothes, shoes and accessories for women. Collections for men, children and the home quickly followed. Next clothes are styled by the in-house design team to offer consistency of style, quality and value for money with a contemporary fashion edge.

Today Next trades from more than 480 stores in the UK and Eire and over 140 franchise stores overseas. Over the last few years several larger format stores have opened across the UK and, in October 2005, Next opened the anchor store at the Manchester Arndale Centre with a store in excess of 80,000 square feet.

The groundbreaking mail order operation Next Directory launched in 1988 with a hardback book containing 350 pages, creating the blueprint for catalogue retailing. There are more than 1,200 pages in the Autumn Winter 2007 book offering extensive collections for men, women, children and everything for the well dressed home.

Online shopping was introduced in 1999 and the entire book is available to shop from on the internet, page by page – another first in home shopping in the UK.

Next continues to improve customer service, introducing new initiatives such as next day delivery as standard for Next Directory orders placed before 5pm.

Customers may collect or return unwanted items at any of 488 stores nationwide should this be more convenient, and a new in-house delivery service has been set up to deliver large Home items with the ability to deliver at weekends. As well as placing orders, customers are able to check their accounts and make payments online.