It looks like retailers should be praying for more snow and cold weather before the Winter ends. Retailer Next has reported a bump in sales which they say “We believe part of this improvement has been down to much colder weather leading up to Christmas“.
Leading into the festive period, in November Next had forecast negative growth of -0.3%, but turned in a result of a +1.5% increase in full price sales in the 54 days from Wednesday 1 November to Sunday 24 December. Naturally this has delighted investors and seen the Next share price soar.
Next aren’t entirely trouble free however, whilst online sales for the period were up +13.6%, instore sales were down -6.1%. All retailers with physical premises are still struggling to remain relevant in the face of online.
For pure play online retailers and marketplace sellers this should be good news. Without the cost of expensive town centre real estate combined with the colder weather and snow, hopefully sales in the run up to Christmas were strong.
What was your last quarter performance like? Did you end up with a bumper Black Friday and Christmas trading or was the 2017 holiday season a damp squib? Did the colder weather give your sales a boost?
