Next ramps up assault on online market Next is to step up its assault on the online retail market, with evening, Sunday and same-day deliveries from its Next Directory business. From November, it will introduce same-day deliveries for online orders, whereby for a £3 premium customers will be able to order before midday for delivery that evening across about 70-80 per cent of the UK. It will also raise the cut off point for next day deliveries from 9pm to 10pm, and introduce next day delivery to store. Unveiling a 10 per cent increase in underlying profit in the six months to July, Lord Wolfson, chief executive said: "If the customer has not got any more money to spend, unless you are doing something like providing additional space for them to trade in, or new online services, they are not going to spend any more." The comments came as Next posted a pre-tax profit of £245m for the first six months of 2012, up 7 per cent on the same period a year earlier, on sales that rose 5 per cent to £1.64bn. Next maintained its guidance for full-year performance, which includes a prediction that pre-tax profit will be between £575m and £620m, while Next brand sales will increase between 2 per cent and 4.5 per cent. However, this was overshadowed by the comments that trade over the past six weeks had been "disappointing." Next did not quantify the weak trading in August and September but it said year-on-year sales growth for the Next brand in the year to date was now running at about 3.25 per cent, compared with 4.5 per cent recorded in the first half. Kate Calvert, analyst at Seymour Pierce, estimated that sales from stores open at least a year fell 4 per cent in the first half. Lord Wolfson also called for the Sunday trading laws to be permanently relaxed, saying that stores that opened for longer performed better than those that did not. He said it would be useful to have longer opening hours on Sunday in the run-up to Christmas. "The whole of December is a time of extreme pressure in stores," he said. That is the time it would be most beneficial to the retail economy if the laws were relaxed. An interim dividend of 31p (27.5p) is payable from earnings per share of 112.8p (96.1p). FT Comment With Next's unsettling comments on recent trading and the shares gaining 44 per cent over the past year, it is little surprise that investors have chosen to take profits. Despite the caution, Next remains a well-run company that has tended to outperform expectations, and which plans to buy back about £200m of shares this year. Forecasts of full-year pre-tax profit of £615m put the shares on a forward p/e of 12.2. The premium to the sector and Marks and Spencer looks deserved and the 7 per cent fall in the shares on Thursday to £33.20p could represent a buying opportunity.