Tesco is to launch an online clothing store in autumn as it looks to take on rival Asda.

The supermarket will offer thousands of items from its lines such as Florence + Fred, Elspeth Gibson and Cherokee. It also plans to boost its clothing range by creating new partnerships.

The launch of the clothing store, which will be accessible through Tesco.com, follows an online clothing trial by Tesco during November 2007 to March 2008.

The supermarket intends to follow in Asda’s footsteps which rolled out a transactional store in October 2008 (nma.co.uk7 October 2008).

Richard Brasher, commercial director at Tesco, said, “Tesco’s in-store clothing ranges have been popular in the shops where we sell them - so we’ve been looking at how we can bring the fashion ranges to more customers, whether they live near a large store or not.”

The supermarket, which reported combined Tesco.com and Tesco Direct sales up 18% to £273m over the seven weeks to 10 January, will relaunch Tesco.com in April this year.

Sainsbury’s is yet to sell its TU clothing range online.