Published
Feb 6, 2017
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Topshop owner denies reports of weak Christmas trading

Published
Feb 6, 2017

Topshop’s owner has denied that the influential UK fast fashion chain had a weak Christmas season as has been claimed. A newspaper report said that Arcadia’s star brand saw a double-digit comparable sales fall, but majority owner Sir Philip Green said “the numbers are wrong.”


Topshop's owner has denied its comp sales fell sharply over Christmas - archiv



The Sunday Times said it understood that the seven week period running from Black Friday to the New Year saw an 11% comps drop at the destination young fashion chain.

And it claimed an overall comp sales decline of 6.5% at Arcadia’s basket of brands that also includes Wallis, Miss Selfridge, Burton, Evans and Dorothy Perkins. The newspaper did not cite a source for the report.

Although he said the numbers were inaccurate, Sir Philip did not give any corrected figures. He said that with Arcadia being a private company, he does not intend to change the strategy of the past 14 years and issue a Christmas trading statement.

It would come as little surprise for any UK chain to have seen challenging comparable sales during the recent Christmas period.

Next gave a downbeat Christmas season report back in January and although some other chains such as Reiss and Ted Baker has a strong trading period, it has become clear that December was a challenging month with shopper footfall dropping.

The newspaper also said that H&M’s reported 6% increase has been interpreted by analysts as a 3% comp sales fall when the impact of new stores was stripped out.

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