Crew Clothes’s big-name retailer hyperlinks drive robust Christmas, January appears good

There’s a key development being seen in UK retail with model after model reporting robust Christmas buying and selling on the again of their link-ups with John Lewis, Subsequent, M&S and Very.

And so it was for Crew Clothes with three of these main retailers. The corporate stated this week that it noticed an “overwhelmingly optimistic” Christmas buying and selling interval with its on-line gross sales helped by its presence on the John Lewis, Subsequent and Very webstores

Like a lot of its retail friends within the seven weeks to eight January, it noticed surging demand for social gathering garments and on-line gross sales jumped 15%. Money-strapped shoppers might have been extra cautious than standard this time, however they nonetheless embraced the primary ‘regular’ festive season since 2019.

The corporate had doubled its attire combine to 14% from 7% and this clearly paid off. Males’s knit and shirts have been additionally robust. However even with the deal with partywear, the model’s traditional half-zip sweat was its bestselling product.

The corporate has a versatile inventory mannequin that allowed it to benefit from its relationships with the Massive Three retail websites by “buying and selling into demand” and ensuring it was capable of provide what consumers needed and get it to them on time.

Gross sales through its personal web site weren’t fairly so spectacular, however regardless of being broadly flat 12 months on 12 months, they have been up 41% towards the equal interval pre-Covid.

As seen elsewhere, retailer gross sales carried out strongly too with a 15% leap on the 12 months and a 9% like-for-like rise.

CEO David Butler admitted that the backdrop was “difficult” however stated the agency’s omnichannel mannequin “and our agile, customer-focused technique” ensured success throughout the important thing purchasing season. 

He added that the loyal buyer base continues to develop and the enterprise has seen “optimistic momentum into 2023” with January gross sales proving robust thus far.