Tesco Q3 clothing sales rise, womenswear is strong

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Jan 10, 2019

After news earlier this week that fashion sales at Sainsbury’s fell over the Christmas trading period, it was interesting to hear that they managed to rise at big rival Tesco in Q3.

The company’s Q3 (19 weeks) and Christmas (six weeks) trading statement showed a sales boost over the festive period in particular. Q3 total UK and Ireland sales had edged up only 0.7%, but the Christmas period saw them rising 2.2%. Like-for-like sales rose 1.9% in the quarter and 2.6% over Christmas.

Across Q3 as a whole, clothing sales increased by 3.8%, “aided by a particularly strong womenswear performance,” which is good news, although we don’t know whether the company was forced to discount to achieve this performance. 

On Wednesday, Sainsbury’s had talked about lower clothing sales, partly due to its unwillingness to hurt margins by excessive discounting.

Tesco also said that in general merchandise the popularity of its exclusive Fox & Ivy homeware and Go Cook cookware ranges contributed to overall like-for-like sales growth of 7.7% in these categories during the 19-week period. This helped to partially offset an overall decline in general merchandise sales which impacted the overall UK like-for-like performance in the period as the supermarkets giant continued to reposition its offer.