Analysts predict sluggish seasonal sales from Next

Next will be the first major fashion retailer to update the market on its seasonal sales performance tomorrow and some analysts are predicting a sluggish performance.

According to The Times, broker Numis is anticipating a 0.5% fall in overall sales in the two months to 24 December, but they will be paying close attention to how the retailer's sales break down by channel.

In November the bellwether retailer reported that its retail sales in the three months to 29 October had dropped by 7.7%, which was more than had been anticipated. However its Directory division had been up 13.2% leading to an overall full-pice sales rise of 1.3% for the quarter.

That November announcement had led to shares dropping that day, however shares had rallied just before Christmas as the market expected the business to prove its resilience over Christmas, as currency headwinds as a result of the slump in Sterling following the Brexit, vote were expected to prove less problematic than they had previously.

Next broke with its own rule of never discounting in-season last year by taking part in Black Friday for the first time ever. However the move was a tentative one with data from WGSN Instock (the retail analytics tool from the trend forecasting giant) suggesting only around 10% of its stock was on sale, compared to House of Fraser and Debenhams with 78.6% and 77.7% respectively.