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British retail giant M&S logs sliding sales on virus

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LONDON: Retailer Marks and Spencer suffered a slump in overall trade ahead of Christmas as virus restrictions slashed visits to UK stores, offsetting solid sales of food online, it said on Friday. Total sales sank 8.4 per cent to £2.8 billion ($3.8 billion, 3.1 billion euros) in its third quarter to December 26, compared with the same period a year earlier, M&S said in a statement.


The company, which last year axed 7,000 jobs due to the virus fallout, said clothing and household goods tumbled by a quarter in the pre-Christmas trading period. Sales of food however rose 2.2 per cent, helped by the performance of its popular Christmas product ranges.


Food also enjoyed strong sales as a result of a tie-up with online supermarket Ocado, which has experienced booming demand during the pandemic. “Given the on-off restrictions and distortions in demand patterns our trading was robust over the Christmas period,” said chief executive Steve Rowe.


“More importantly beneath the Covid clouds we saw a very strong performance from the food business, including Ocado Retail, and a further acceleration of clothing and home online.” — AFP


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