M&S clothing sales decline over Christmas period

Marks & Spencer (M&S) has blamed unseasonal weather conditions in October and November and disruption at its Castle Donington distribution centre resulted in clothing sales decline in December. General merchandise sales declined below 5.4 percent with like-for-like sales decreasing below 5.8 percent.

Commenting on the company’s sales update, Marc Bolland, Chief Executive, said, “M&S had a very good Christmas in Food. We delivered record Christmas sales, strongly outperforming the market. We had a difficult quarter in General Merchandise, dominated by unseasonal conditions and an unsatisfactory performance in our e-commerce distribution centre.”

Though the company received positive customer feedback on its Autumn/Winter women’s wear ranges, trading in October and November was affected by unseasonal conditions which impacted sales across the clothing sector and resulted in a highly promotional market. Overall International business was heavily impacted by the worsening currency and macro-economic issues across Middle East and Russia franchise region. However, its owned business performed well with strong performance in key markets such as India.

The company’s gross margin guidance remains unchanged at over 150bps to 200bps for general merchandise and over 10bps to 30bps for food. M&S will report its fourth quarter trading results on April 2, 2015.