Jigsaw sees fashionable rise in sales

Jigsaw is celebrating all things spring, especially as its latest collection boosted sales.The privately owned company said that its spring range was well received by fashionistas and opinion-formers, prompting a 5.5 per cent improvement in like-for-like sales in February.

The company has also benefited from securing extra business through John Lewis, whose fashion sales are soaring.

Jigsaw is developing a homewares range and this week added bedding and cushions to the products it is putting on the market. Sales at Kew, its smaller brand, rose by 14.1 per cent in February on a like-for-like basis, or 31 per cent in total.

The improvement comes after a tough year for the company, which was founded by John Robinson and Malcolm Webster in 1972. Jigsaw closed a warehouse and asked some landlords for reductions in rates. It also replaced its auditors, Simmons Gainsford with PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Jigsaw’s sizeable American business bucked the economic malaise there by recording a 40 per cent like-for-like improvement on last year.

Robinson Webster, Jigsaw’s holding company, lost £3.7 million before tax in 2008, the last year for which figures have been posted, on a turnover of £79 million.

Source: The Times