House of Fraser cashes in on Christmas sales
House of Fraser capitalised on the Black Friday and Boxing Day week sales in November and December, boosting its like-for-like sales by 2.7 per cent in the festive period.
The department store said that during its six-day Black Friday sales event, total sales increased 2.7 per cent on the same period the year before. Unsurprisingly, a hefty proportion of House of Fraser's shoppers chose to make their purchases online, with online sales accounting for 41 per cent of the total.
Shoppers were just as keen to get a bargain after Christmas, with House of Fraser's Boxing Day week sales helping it to deliver record sales figures in the two weeks to the end of December. The news comes after the department store warned that the trading environment in the UK was "volatile".
Read more: House of Fraser CEO Nigel Oddy resigns as Christmas trading looms
House of Fraser appears to have survived a tough Christmas for department stores in general. Recent figures from Barclaycard showed that consumer spending in department stores fell by 3.5 per cent year-on-year in December, and that spending on the UK high street as a whole was flat.
Nigel Oddy, House of Fraser's chief executive, said:
We are very pleased to report a solid overall performance this Christmas, driven in part by very strong online demand over Black Friday and good Boxing Day week sales.
In addition, we are delighted by the results achieved in our recently refurbished stores, which have consistently appeared among our top performing stores over the Christmas period.
Oddy recently announced he will be leaving House of Fraser after less than two years in the job.