As forecast, Marks and Spencer has registered a fall in sales over the Christmas trading period, and in the last three months of 2007.
The key indicator, M&S’s UK like-for-like sales, dropped 2.2 per cent in the period, said its trading statement this morning. Food sales performed more strongly, but still decreased, by 1.5 per cent.
But sales growth in the food division is a concern, particularly when placed against the 4.1 per cent growth in like-for-like sales announced by Waitrose yesterday.
Steven Esom, M&S's director of foods, has talked up a new range, which will start to appear in stores this week, that targets the foodie shopper prevalent at his previous employer Waitrose. "From now on customers looking to cook from scratch and wanting to buy all their ingredients under one roof will increasingly find everything they need at M&S," said Esom. "At M&S we believe great food starts with great ingredients. We've always been famous for the quality of our fresh and prepared food, but now we have used all our passion and enthusiasm for great-tasting food to create a stunning new range of cooking ingredients."
Chief executive Sir Stuart Rose warned of tougher times to come in 2008, as M&S recorded its worst quarterly performance for two years, after a string of City-pleasing results announcements.
Talking to the BBC, Sir Stuart said the UK High Street "has definitely slowed up", but said that the food sector had improved in its outlook. He also insisted that M&S steered clear of the trend to discount heavily to shift its stock. "We did not discount in the run-up to Christmas," Sir Stuart said. "Stock levels were well controlled over the period. We had a strong start to the Christmas Sale and sale stocks have now cleared.”
There was some joy internationally, where M&S's sales showed an increase of 15.1 per cent.
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