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High-end maternity clothing company Seraphine has seen profits quadruple and turnover increased by 60 percent after Kate Middleton chose to wear one of the company’s dresses in the first official photograph of Prince George, and throughout her pregnancy.

Seraphine, which has three stores in London, has projected a £1.1 million profit before tax, up from £0.25 million for the previous year. Turnover has increased from £5.2 million to £8.3 million.

The purple dress which was worn in the official family portrait cost just £46 and sold out within two hours of the photograph being published on 20 August 2013. There was a four week waiting list after the dress sold out.

Chelsey Oliver, creative director of Seraphine explained that the company’s success was due to the fact that they were one of the only retailers dressing the duchess during her pregnancy. Oliver also added that she was a great role model: “She was wearing a maternity brand post pregnancy and she was saying to the world, ‘I’m a real woman, I’m not jumping back into tiny fitted clothes’. On top of her looking great, her message was such a good one”

On the back of the publicity the company is hoping to open more stores across the UK and in the US, in New York. Seraphine predicts that it will grow by a further 60 percent in the next year, with revenue expected to reach £13 million by March 2015.

This isn’t the first time Kate Middleton has helped boost a fashion company’s sales. Reiss, Whistles, and LK Bennett have all seen profit boosts and expansions internationally.

Last month, online sales of non-food products grew by 14.3 percent year on year, as many shoppers opted to stay in the comfort of their homes shopping as Britain saw some of its worse weather for years.

The data comes from the BRC-KPMG online retail sales monitor and shows that retailers in clothing, footwear and non-food stores would have usually seen a decline in sales during this period.

This is great news for online retailers as in the last three months 40 percent of non-food retail growth was represented by online sales. Online sales of furniture and flooring has also been steadily on the rise over the past few months – a reflection of the damage caused by bad weather.

Helen Dickinson, the Director General of the British Retail Consortium commented on the figures saying it underlies the importance of retailers having consistent multi channel offers, adding that, “online sales boost what would otherwise have been declining sales figures for half of all categories.”

However, overall retail sales actually dropped by one percent on a like-for-like basis after January saw a rise in sales by 3.9 percent. Most notably sales dropped in the south and south west of the country, areas which were greatly affected by bad weather.

Meanwhile, a recent report by Industrial and Logistics Market showed that take up was on the increase for industrial and logistics space in 2013, reflecting a growing demand in online shopping.

Online fashion retailer boohoo.com has set a share price of 50p each in its stock market flotation which has valued the Manchester-based company at £560 million.

It is listing its shares on AIM, London’s junior market, following rival Asos, who has already joined the market. Just last month, boohoo.com managed to recruit Peter Williams, a former non-executive director of Asos to its board, becoming a non-executive chairman. 

The company was founded back in 2006 by Mahumud Kamani and Carol Kane, the former of which has an 82 percent stake before the flotation which has now fallen to 24.5 percent. Kane also sees her 9.8 percent share fall to 4.6 percent. Around 55 percent of boohoo.com‘s shares are expected to be freely tradeable after flotation.

The company sells own-brand clothing to men and women, with a core market of those aged between 16 and 24. It had a promising period for sales in the 10 months leading up to December 2013, when sales rose 70 percent to £91.9 million.

Of the proceeds of its flotation, boohoo.com will us £240 million to repay convertible loans, while £50 million will be used for expansion and to enhance working capital.

Trading will start on 14 March, which comes after the news that several other high street and online brands will also be floated. Convenience store McCool’s, Poundland, Pets at home, Fat Face, B&M, and House of Frasier are all expected to come onto the market.

A study has revealed that smartphone users spent an average of £199 on their phones during 2013, with 40% of smartphone owners using their phones to make purchases.

The survey was conducted by marketing agency Cheil Worldwide and they surveyed 1,000 British smartphone owners, finding that average spend on smartphones had risen by 63% in the last five years.

Over half of the people surveyed said that they used their phones in store, with a further half saying that they compared prices online, took photos of products or researched product information. One-sixth of people also used their device to check for better prices on competitors’ website.

President of shopper marketing and retail experience at Cheil, Simon Hathaway said: “The smartphone has become a key element of how we shop, and all evidence points to it having been a bumper post-Christmas sales period for mobile commerce.”

He added that the amount we spend on buying items on our phone is set to rise even more as it becomes easier to buy things online. The survey revealed that half of smartphone users bought their phone with the sole intention of using it for the purposes of shopping.

Hathaway also said that the high street is changing as we’re becoming “smart phone focused shoppers” and that consumers now have an expectation that the retail experience should be everywhere, instant and personal.

According to an industry survey by the British Retail Consortium (BRC), British retail sales are at their strongest ever since April 2011, with the total amount spent in stores 5.4% higher than a year ago.

The figures have been helped in part by the recovery of the property market with the number of mortgage approvals rising to its highest level since January 2008. Strong consumer demand has helped too, even though price inflation is rising faster than wages.

The BRC found that there has a been strong performance for furniture and other non-food items, with the fastest annual sales growth since 2006. Weather has also played a part in affecting what we buy, as there has been a lack of snow this year which has encouraged more people to go shopping.

In January 2013 the snow prompted consumers to bulk buy food meaning that this year the food sector performed the poorest, with an annual growth of just 0.8%, the lowest ever recorded.

On a like-for-like basis sales in all sectors rose by 3.9% on the year, outstripping economists’ forecasts of 0.8% growth. It’s the highest since April 2011, when sales were boosted by the timing of Easter. Excluding this, sales growth has been the highest since March 2010.

The strong growth was good news for retailers, after weak Christmas sales. Sales in the lead up to this January were only slightly above average at 3.2%.