Sales at homeware and clothing chain Next have plummeted by 30% in the last few days as coronavirus sweeps Britain.
The group warned it is preparing for a "significant" trading downturn but insisted stress tests showed the business could "comfortably sustain" more than £1 billion loss of sales over the full year - including sales declines of up to 100% in some weeks during the peak of the outbreak.
Online sales are likely to fare better than its 498 stores due to social distancing measures, but it gave a bleak outlook for trading in the coming months, cautioning that "people do not buy a new outfit to stay at home".
The comments came as Next reported a better-than-expected 0.8% rise in pre-tax profits to £728.5 million for the year to January as overall full-price brand sales lifted 4%.
Next chief executive Lord Simon Wolfson said: "When the pandemic first appeared in China, we assumed that the threat was to our supply chain. It is now very clear that the risk to demand is by far the greatest challenge we face and we need to prepare for a significant downturn in sales for the duration of the pandemic."
