UK lifestyle brand Ted Baker remains confident of meeting its full year expectations after a double-digit boost from its online business helped lift retail sales figures over the Christmas period.
In a trading update today (10 January), the UK-listed company said retail sales increased by 9% in the eight weeks to 6 January compared to the same period last year. E-commerce sales jumped 35% and represented 30.1% of total retail sales.
Gross margins were in line with its expectations and the retailer said it expects to end the year with a clean stock position.
“The Ted Baker brand has continued to perform in line with expectations over the Christmas period, delivering a good retail performance driven by particularly strong growth from e-commerce, which is an increasingly important part of our retail business,” said CEO Ray Kelvin. “This pleasing result reflects the strength of the brand and the quality of our collections.”
Fiona Paton, retail analyst at GlobalData, notes: “Ted Baker’s strong performance is also a result of shoppers willing to trade up from the mid-market for Christmas gifting for better quality and design. While store openings in the period will have aided Ted Baker’s sales, online was clearly the winning channel.
“Ted Baker managed to hold out at full price for the majority of the Christmas trading period but started to offer 50% off in the week before Christmas – helping to remain competitive against rivals such as Reiss which also discounted. Ted Baker also had five days of 30% off selected items for Black Friday enough to entice shoppers while protecting margins.”
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By GlobalData
