Online and catalogue giant Shop Direct said its sales rose over Christmas after an 'explosion' in mobile shopping.
The £1.6 billion turnover giant said turnover grew 5 per cent in the six weeks to December 27 compared to the same period last year. Sales in the 26 weeks to the end of 2013 increased 1 per cent suggesting a marked acceleration in sales over the final weeks.
Group CEO Alex Baldock described the retail market over Christmas as 'tough' and 'highly promotional'.
But he said: 'We're proud to report a record Christmas for Shop Direct. We've come through an exceptionally tough environment and come through it stronger.'
He added: 'This Christmas was another milestone on our journey to being a world class digital retailer, as our department store range, unique financial services offer and ever-growing ecommerce capabilities allowed us to make good things easily accessible to more people.'
Shop Direct, formerly catalogue group Littlewoods, is said its relatively new digital brands such as Very.co.uk and Isme.com 'out-paced the market' while it continued to re-engineer its 'heritage brands', including Littlewoods.com and KandCo.com, to profitability.
Very.co.uk and Isme.com delivered combined sales of 27 per cent in the six weeks while Littlewoods and KandCo.com grew by 5 per cent.
Online sales increased 14 per cent overall increasing digital revenue to 84 per cent of sales compared to 80 per cent in the same period last year. Mobile sales, which rose 64 per cent, now account for 43 per cent of online sales versus 28 per cent last year.
Baldock said: 'By 2015, we expect every transaction to involve a mobile device at some point in the customer journey. It’s hard to overstate how important this trend is, and we mean to stay on top of it.'
Traffic to its websites is already dominated by mobile devices as shoppers use their spare time to research shopping decisions. Traffric from mobiles increased to 52 per cent of all internet traffic from 37 per cent last year.
Total visits to websites increased 32 per cent to 56 million.
It said the week commencing Saturday 30th was the busiest week of the year and Cyber Monday, on December 2, was the busiest day.
The company sold 76,500 consoles including Xboxes and Playstation 4s, with over 120,000 tablets sold, up 31 per cent on last year. Childrenswear sales rose 20 per cent, in part because of the expansion of the branded product ranges and investment in Ladybird.
Beauty sales increased 18 per cent on the back of new brand introductions such as GHD, St Tropez, Illamasqua and Bourgois. It also said it sold a onesie every 35 seconds, 103,000 in total and that Adidas, Apple, Babyliss, Samsung, Superdry and UGG were among its best selling brands.
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