Jessops snaps up Christmas trade
Sales growth over festive period
Jessops has seen its sales hold up well over Christmas, helped by particularly strong demand for digital cameras.
The specialist photographic retailer, which floated on the stock market last year, has reported total sales growth of 10.4 per cent across the five weeks to January 8. Like-for-like store sales grew by 4.5 per cent with home shopping like-for-likes up 46.2 per cent, generating total like-for-like growth of 6.2 per cent.
In the eight weeks to November 28, total sales grew by 8.5 per cent with like-for-like store sales up 6 per cent and home shopping like-for-likes up 14.2 per cent.
Jessops said its sales held up despite the generally tough trading conditions on the high street throughout the Christmas trading period. Sales of digital cameras through all channels increased by 25.7 per cent across the period.
In stores, the strong demand for digital cameras and for digital developing and processing was partly offset by the falling demand for analogue processing. Jesops said this has had a short-term impact on margins over the period but is not expected to affect the results for the year as a whole.
Jessops’ home shopping business, with sales generated through mail order, telesales and the internet, showed strong seasonal growth, reflecting the general growth in distance shopping in the UK over the Christmas period.
Jessops has opened nine new stores since the start of the current financial year, bringing the total number to 271.
Derek Hine, chief executive, said: “Despite a generally tough retail environment, our trading over Christmas held up well against some very strong growth comparators both last year and in 2003.
“While it remains early days, trading in the first three months has maintained the momentum of 2004, with continued evidence of the strong demand for digital products. We are committed to driving the business hard and believe that we can deliver a good outcome for the year as a whole.”
