Marks & Spencer festive fashion sales jump by almost 5%

Marks & Spencer recorded a 4.8% uplift (to £1.24 billion) in Clothing & Home sales over the third quarter festive trading period as the high street giant continues with its turnaround. 

The high street giant said it had successfully increased the average selling price of its fashion lines, partly a result of reduced promotions year-on-year, and "improved perceptions" of the style, quality and value of its womenswear lines in particular.

Knitwear was a strong performer (up 15%) with Marks & Spencer selling 27,000 of its Soft Touch Roll Neck Jumpers for £25 each over the period while in Denim and Casual Bottoms (up 14%) it sold 45,000 pairs of its £22.50 Cosy High Waist Leggings and 23,000 pairs of its High Waisted Straight Leg Embellished Jeans retailing at £45. Its premium Autograph collection had also performed very well with sales up 20% and partywear up 23%.

As a result Marks & Spencer said its market share in fashion had risen to 9% with stores sales up ahead of plan at +2% and online sales up +10%.

Meanwhile Food was up 9.9% like-for-like at £2.33 billion with total UK sales up 8.5% at £3.57 billion.

CEO Stuart Machin said: "Our strategy to reshape M&S for growth has enabled sustained sales momentum across Food and Clothing & Home over the Christmas period.  Thank you to our customers for shopping with us and to our colleagues who worked incredibly hard.

"In Food, we led the market on volume growth every month with a c.7% increase across the quarter, and served more customers than ever before. Core categories grew strongly and renewal stores, which cater to larger basket shops, performed particularly well, as more customers looked to us for more of their full shop.

"In Clothing & Home, we delivered a good performance with sales growing ahead of the market and less stock going into sale. Womenswear has been the standout, growing volume and value significantly ahead of the market.

"Underpinning the strong performance in both businesses is our commitment to trusted value – unbeatable M&S quality at the best possible price. In Food, we inflated below the market, with quality perception increasing further. In Clothing & Home, style perception continued to improve and we maintained our lead on quality and value, delivering an increase in full price sales mix and our highest full price market share for over a decade.

"We enter 2024 with a spring in our step, but clear eyed on the near-term challenges. We are determined to deliver our objective of driving 1% growth in market share in both businesses and to up the pace of our transformation: keeping a relentless focus on trusted value; accelerating our store rotation and renewal plans; doubling down on our supply chain programmes to improve availability and lower costs; and resetting our data, digital and technology strategy to unlock benefits in future years.

"Our vision is to be the most trusted retailer, doing the right thing for our customers, with quality products at the heart of everything we do, and we are just at the beginning of what we can achieve. Lots done, lots to do, lots of opportunity ahead.”