Black Friday kicked off a strong Christmas for House of Fraser, with underlying sales at the privately-owned department store up 8% over the six weeks to 3 January.
Surging sales of in-house brands such as Linea and Biba helped lift profit margins by 9%, but the retailer said it had enjoyed sales growth in all categories, including homewares and beauty.
“This year we saw a very strong start to the key Christmas season with Black Friday being particularly successful. This positive momentum continued over the entire critical selling period with a record sales level during the final week before Christmas,” said House of Fraser’s chief executive, John King.
He said sales were boosted by improvements to the company’s online store, where sales rose 31.2%. The internet was particularly important on Black Friday, the US-imported promotional day, when its online sales were up 125% on last year, well ahead of any previous peak.
“That is a good performance, reflecting the strength of House of Fraser’s online operation under Andy Harding and they have been quite clever about discounting, avoiding the ‘price-matching’ battle of Debenhams and John Lewis,” said Nick Bubb, an independent retail analyst.
House of Fraser’s figures are yet more evidence of the importance of the internet to retailers’ Christmas performance, reflecting a similar story from John Lewis and Next.
A late surge in fashion sales is potentially good news for Marks & Spencer and Debenhams, both of which report trading figures within the next week, but the two stores’ problems with online deliveries may have put shoppers off.
Analysts at Société Générale predict M&S will reveal a 3% fall in general merchandise sales, largely made up of clothing, in the three months to December, partly because of widely-reported problems with its online distribution systems, but also because the retailer is trying to reduce discounting and the amount of stock it holds. The analysts downgraded the stock to “hold” from “buy” as the share price has risen while clothing sales continue to fall.
