Clothing and home furnishing sales at UK retailer M&S were down 8.3 per cent year over year for the 13 week period ending July 2, 2016, while, like for like sales too were down 8.9 per cent.

However, international sales were up 0.7 per cent from a fiscal ago quarter at constant currency and rose 6.1 per cent on a reported basis.

In the trading statement released for the first quarter of fiscal 2016-17, M&S said, “As planned, the summer sale began on July 5, two weeks later than last year.”

“We continued to reduce the number of promotional events during the quarter, including just one ‘cyber day’ compared with six last year,” it added.

“We have repriced 1,000 lines since January and are pleased with early results, while for lines repriced in the fourth fiscal quarter; we have seen strong sales growth,” the retailer observed.

CEO Steve Rowe said, “A key part of our recovery plan for Clothing & Home is lowering prices and reducing promotions.”

“As a result, we ran fewer price promotions while continuing to lower prices to deliver real value to our customers, and moved the summer sale to July,” he also added.