Yahoo Finance Littlewoods Owner Enjoys Record Christmas
Littlewoods owner Shop Direct has said it has benefited by ditching its catalogue business to become a purely online retailer as it reported record Christmas trading.
The group said sales for the seven weeks to 25 December rose 6%.
Its Very.co.uk brand grew by 17% as it remained on course to deliver more than £1bn in annual sales.
Shop Direct said the results outperformed the rest of the market and compared to a strong period a year before.
It (Other OTC: ITGL - news) was the first Christmas trading period since Littlewoods catalogue sales were scrapped.
The company said this helped it to concentrate on its online-only strategy, with no distraction from catalogues or physical stores.
Chief executive Alex Baldock said: "Christmas 2015 was a record-breaker for Shop Direct, and we're pleased to see our momentum continue to build.
"Received wisdom is that every retailer should be multi-channel. We don't buy that. We like being a digital pure play. It allows us to keep things simple and focus our energy on mobile innovation, which has been a big factor in our record peak trading."
Shop Direct said it saw 82 million visits to its sites, up 8% year-on-year. Black Friday sales climbed by 64%, it added.
The number one Christmas gift was fragrance, with 284,000 units sold. Meanwhile clothing and footwear sales were up 6% despite unusually warm weather – which hurt other fashion retailers.
Very.co.uk sales via mobile devices grew 32% year-on-year, to account for 63% of Christmas sales.
Shop Direct's insistence that it was better off as an online-only retailer comes after the British Retail Consortium reported a disappointing December for the sector as a whole, but a surge in web sales.
Marks & Spencer (Other OTC: MAKSY - news) and Next (Other OTC: NXGPF - news) had disappointing results.
Department store John Lewis said it had enjoyed strong Christmas trading thanks to a 21% increase in online sales, while revenues from stores were lower.
Its business model includes the "click-and-collect" option for delivery to physical John Lewis or Waitrose stores. Shop Direct argues it is doing well without bricks-and-mortar shops. It has partnerships with thousands of UK outlets to offer a click-and-collect service.
In October, Shop Direct posted a 78% surge in annual profits to £71.7m after ditching Littlewoods catalogue sales after more than 80 years (Other OTC: UBGXF - news) .
