Christmas sales rise for Shop Direct

Jan 6 2010 by Iain Laing, The Journal

THE owner of home shopping brands Littlewoods and Woolworths.co.uk has posted a 6.3% rise in festive sales after delivering nearly eight million items over Christmas.

Shop Direct Group said the sales hike in the six weeks to January 1 came after demand for online shopping soared, with its websites attracting one million customers a day.

Online sales rose 19% on a year earlier and now make up nearly two thirds of all turnover – close to the group’s target for 70% of sales via the internet by the next financial year.

An advertising campaign featuring Radio 1’s Fearne Cotton and TV presenter Holly Willoughby helped its Very.co.uk brand notch up a 26% increase in total sales.

Very, which was rebranded from Littlewoods Direct earlier this year, saw customer traffic rise 31%.

Shop Direct’s trading figures mirror good news from the high street as John Lewis and Next also revealed robust sales over the Christmas period.

Trading was “strong” across all of its brands, according to Shop Direct, although it did not provide figures for Woolworths – relaunched online in June after it bought the brand from administrators following the retailer’s collapse.

Less cut-price clearance sales before Christmas and “stronger supplier support” helped boost profit margins this year, but sales growth slowed on the 9% seen last Christmas.

Mark Newton-Jones, group chief executive, said the rise of online shopping was extending the festive sales period.

“We found that last year customers concentrated their shopping into two weeks but this year, we have seen four equally large trading weeks; the last two weeks of November and the first two weeks of December,” he said.