Marks & Spencer said this morning that online sales rose 23 per cent as it prepares to separate from its partner Amazon after a decade.
Chief executive Marc Bolland said the ecommerce division had a 'great quarter' and was 'strongly ahead of the market.'
He said: 'Our strategy to transform M&S into an international, multichannel retailer will keep on improving our dot.com service with the launch of our new platform and our new warehouse at full capacity.'
But the performance of the retailer's internet business, which relies on Amazon's systems to sell its clothes online, failed to help management save face in a quarter when overall like-for-like sales fell 0.2 per cent.
Marks & Spencer said its like-for-like clothing and home sales declined 2.1 per cent in the 13 weeks to December 28. Food, which it does not sell online other than a limited 'party' range, rose 1.6 per cent on a like-for-like basis.
The retailer said the overall performance was better when the eight weeks to December 24 were taken in isolation. Clothing like-for-likes increased 0.5 per cent in that period and food increased 1.5 per cent on the same basis.
It said in this morning's statement: 'This has been a challenging quarter for the [clothing and home] market, with unseasonal conditions and higher than ever levels of discounting. Against this backdrop, we held our full price trading stance for much of the quarter, but as the level of promotional activity in the marketplace intensified in the run up to Christmas, we responded with a number of promotions.'
It continued: 'We saw early signs of improvement in our Womenswear business, with customers responding positively to our re-focus on quality and style, resulting in small market share growth in this area for the first time in three years. We delivered a good performance across key categories including coats, dresses and footwear. We managed stocks tightly, resulting in a clean position at the end of the quarter.'
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