M&S clothing sales continue to suffer amid revival efforts

While Marks & Spencer (M&S) reported a rise of 1.3 percent in Group sales in the 13 weeks to July 2, its clothing & home sales continued to suffer and were down by 8.3 percent. The company said that like-for-like sales were down by 8.9 percent in a weak market.

Commenting on the company’s performance, Steve Rowe, Chief Executive, said, “A key part of our recovery plan for clothing & home is lowering prices and reducing promotions. As a result, we ran fewer price promotions while continuing to lower prices to deliver real value to our customers, and moved the summer sale to July. We knew our actions would reduce total sales but we are seeing some encouraging early signs.”

Reduces promotions to revive clothing sales

As planned by the company, the summer sale began on July 5, two weeks later than last year. It also continued to reduce the number of promotional events during the quarter, including just one ‘cyber day’ compared with six last year. M&S has repriced around1,000 of its lines since January and said that the early results were encouraging with Q4 witnessing a strong sales growth.

International sales were up 0.7 percent at constant currency and rose 6.1percent on a reported basis. M&S said that the full year guidance remains unchanged amid the challenging market environment.

“As highlighted in May, consumer confidence weakened in the run up to the EU referendum. While it is too early to quantify the implications of Brexit, we are confident that our strategic priorities and the actions we are taking remain the right ones to deliver results for our customers and our business,” added Rowe.

picture:m&s.com