Tesco gets fashion sales boost at Christmas

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Jan 11, 2018

Tesco has had its problems in recent years but in Q3 and over Christmas, its recovery appeared to continue, if not as strongly as some in the UK. The supermarket giant said Thursday that overall comparable sales rose 2.2% in the combined Q3/Christmas 19-week period and clothing was a positive contributor to that.

A day earlier, rival Sainsbury’s had revealed a 1% rise in clothing sales and that was seen as good news given the weak UK fashion retail market. But Tesco managed a 5% rise for clothing over the six-week Christmas period and the company said its “F+F ranges continued to prove popular with customers.”

The supermarket has been putting major marketing support behind F+F in recent periods and this has been feeding through into higher sales. In the first half of its current financial year its clothing comparable sales rise of 3.5% had outstripped growth at the business as a whole. 

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And this appears to be continuing as supermarkets are increasingly one-stop-shop destinations for UK consumers who want to pick up jeans, pyjamas, separates or kidswear at the same time as their groceries.

But it seems to be doing less well in the general merchandise area, which it said was a “drag” on comparable sales. In fact, this area dipped 0.6% in the UK over the Christmas period as it “continued to de-emphasise certain categories.”