Retail review: Sales fall at Next, Debenhams and Dunelm
THE scale of the pain felt on the High Street over the crucial Christmas period was seen today as Next, Debenhams and Dunelm reported sharp falls in like-for-like sales.
The performance of the trio comes ahead of a trading update tomorrow from Marks & Spencer, which is also likely to be poor and accompanied by news of up to 1,000 job losses.
In today’s updates, Next said like-for-like sales in 347stores unaffected by new openings were down 7% in the period from July 29 to Christmas Eve.
The company said consumer confidence was likely to “remain weak” this year with falling house prices, unemployment and the fear of unemployment restraining spending.
It said from a consumer point of view it was not all doom and gloom, as fuel and energy prices were falling, but said it expected to feel some pain from the fall in the value of the pound later this year, and warned of “significant upward pressure on prices and downward pressure on margins.”
Department store chain Debenhams was the most bullish of the trio, despite a 3.3% fall in sales in the last 12 weeks.
It said this had been a “creditable sales performance given the extremely difficult and volatile conditions seen across the High Street”.
The updates come as the Nationwide’s consumer confidence index fell to a new record low during December. The index fell to just 47 last month, nearly half of its level of 84 in December 2007, and down from 51 in November.
Out of town homewares specialist Dunelm, which is supplied by a number of North West textile companies, said its like-for-like sales were down 5.6% in the 26 weeks to December 27. Chief executive Will Adderley described the performance as “solid” in a “period of huge turbulence”.
