Fashion failed to sell on Black Friday

Now that all the figures from Black Friday to Cyber Monday are in, the big boost retailers where hoping to see from their promotions, never appeared.

Fashion sales saw the biggest decline in sales at 4.9 percent, as overall like-for-like sales fell 4.3 percent in November, compared to the same month last year, impacted by an “exceptional” poor start to the to the month, according to accountancy and business advisory firm BDO.

Mild weather affects sales of winter fashion

Unseasonably mild temperatures, which have been blamed for keeping shoppers away from shops throughout the year continued to affect sales of winter products.

Lifestyle sales also saw a deep slide of 4 percent this month, with sales of small ticket giftware items, which have been good for the remainder of the year, putting a dampener on the overall figure, BDO said.

While the headline figures paint a sorry picture of Christmas trading so far, Sophie Michael, Head of Retail and Wholesale at BDO, said the underlying narrative was more positive for retailers.

“Last year’s Black Friday caught many stores off-guard, and panic discounting played havoc with stock levels, leading to erosion in margin and reputational damage when websites crashed and logistics went awry,” she said.

Black Friday rebranded as pre-Christmas shopping event

“This year retailers were far more organised and tried to create a pre-Christmas shopping event that works for the UK shopper, with many extending offers over a number of days rather than just the Friday. Retailers beefed up their servers and fulfilment centres, and opted for strategic, staggered discounts that were more closely aligned to stock levels.

These numbers conflicted with those released by Visa Europe, which said that consumer spending increased 1.1 percent on the month, driven by a 4.1 percent rise in online spend. This was a slower pace than the 2.1 percent recorded in October.

High street spending fell by 1.5 percent after a slight increase the previous month, when spending rose by 1 percent.

The Visa numbers said clothing and footwear sales rose by 3.5 percent, while household goods sales rose by 1 percent.

The managing director for UK and Ireland ant Visa Europe, Kevin Jenkins, said: “The high street as a whole suffered a disappointing month, though our data suggests a flat, rather than declining performance on Black Friday itself.