Marks & Spencer took its biggest share of the clothing and homewares market in seven years and the largest slice of the food market ever over Christmas, while Tesco enjoyed its strongest-ever day of sales on 23 December.
M&S said sales of fashion and homewares rose 8.8% in the three months to 31 December as it said shoppers had exploited its “click & collect” service to pick up online orders during the postal strikes. Partywear sales more than doubled and formalwear was up 40% with a particularly strong performance on menswear and suits.
Food purchases rose 10.2%, just behind the official inflation figures, with strong turkey sales and more than a fifth of shoppers putting one of its Remarkable Value low-price items in their baskets. Improved availability of products after last year’s supply chain issues also helped.
The figures have defied fears of a gloomy Christmas for retailers – but partly reflect soaring inflation with the actual number of items sold likely to have fallen given price rises. Sales growth at the retailers still lagged behind current headline inflation of 10.7%.
The news came as Tesco also said it had enjoyed a strong Christmas, with its best-ever day of sales on 23 December. Sales rose 7.2% in the UK in the six weeks to 7 January and almost 8% in total. The UK’s biggest supermarket chain said it had drawn in more shoppers over the festive period with particularly strong sales of fresh food pushing total food sales up by 12.9% – in line with inflation figures. Online sales rose 2% over Christmas, bouncing back from a 0.7% dip in the quarter as a whole.
Ken Murphy, the chief executive of Tesco said: “I’m really pleased with our performance over this period – particularly the further strong growth at Christmas on top of the exceptional growth of the last few years.”
Tesco and M&S said they continued to expect to meet profit expectations for the year after slight upgrades from Sainsbury’s and JD Sports on Wednesday.
It was a different story at online fashion specialist Asos, however. The group said sales sank 4% in the four months to 31 December including an 8% fall in the UK as problems with deliveries, including postal strikes, dented sales.
Asos said the fall in sales also reflected “weak consumer sentiment” in the UK and continued to expect to make a loss in the first half of its financial year.
The online retailer is trying to make moneysaving efforts including reducing unwanted stock, cutting 10% of jobs at its head office and removing unprofitable brands in a series of measures announced in the autumn.
