Debenhams credits marketing for sales lift

Debenhams has cited investment in marketing for a sector-beating and weather-defying increase in quarterly sales.

debenhams

The retailer, the UK’s second largest department store, says sales from stores open for a year or more grew 3% in the 16 weeks to 23 June, which included its fiscal third quarter.

The increase, the company adds in a statement, was achieved despite “economic uncertainty and unseasonal weather”.

Effective marketing spend to grab a healthy share of additional consumer spending around Easter, Mother’s Day and the Diamond Jubilee helped boost sales, it adds. The impact of the “Life Made Fabulous” campaign for its clothing offering was also noted.

Elsewhere, online sales grew 34.9% in the period, driven by an uplift in mobile sales which now account for 30% of all website traffic, it says.

Quoting Kantar data, the retailer claims it has increased market share in all categories, particularly womenswear where share grew by 10 points in the 12 weeks to 13 May.

The retailer adds that same store sales in the first half of its fiscal year grew 1.4%.

Recommended