29 Jan 2016 Maplin Reports Healthy Christmas Trading with a Boost From Online
Electronics specialist Maplin has seen its strongest Christmas sales on record, with online shopping leading the way during the festive period. Like-for-like sales across the retailer grew by +2.3% in the period from Black Friday, 27 November, to 2 January 2016. This same period also saw online sales up +33.3%.
The category that led the way in the lead up to Christmas was Gadgets, which saw the DJI Phantom Quadcopter become the ‘must have’ Christmas gift. Another category that saw considerable growth was CCTV, which saw a 31.7% increase in like-for-like sales, with +54.1% for Security sales.
Oliver Meakin, chief executive office at Maplin, said: “Given some challenging market conditions, we are pleased with our overall Christmas performance. We’ve seen a significant increase in all online sales this year, none more so than the lead up to the festive period. Encouragingly, we saw an increase in click and collect also, with our customers choosing the convenience of collecting their products from our stores when they wanted, rather than having to wait around at home for a delivery.”
“Moving forward, we believe that Black Friday is here to stay. As a consequence, we believe that Christmas going forward will consist of three peaks; a peak at the end of November for Black Friday, a peak in the final Christmas week for last minute gifting and a strong week after Christmas sale activity.”
Meakin continued: “The increase in online trade reflects a growing trend throughout the retail sector, as other retailers’ report that web sales helped to boost Christmas performance. However, it is those retailers that provide customer with the convenience of shops to collect products from but also the chance to gain advice from knowledgeable store colleagues that appear to be winning.”