Online retail giant Very says it enjoyed a strong Christmas and outperformed its rivals despite a “challenging” economic environment.
In its Christmas and Black Friday period trading results for the seven weeks to December 22, the Littlewoods owner said its Ƶ retail sales grew 3.4% year-on-year, with overall retail sales growth of 2.1% year-on-year.
Standout categories included toys, gifts and beauty - all with 8.8% year-on-year growth - and electrical, with 7.4% growth.
Fashion and sports was down 3.9% year-on-year, though premium fashion saw a 14.7% rise.
Top selling items by price included the PlayStation 5 console and Xbox Series X consoles, as well as the Ninja Foodi Max Dual Zone air fryer. By volume, top-selling items included Marc Jacobs perfumes, Barbie Dream Boat and the Meta Quest 2 virtual reality headset.
The Liverpool-based group said: “Very Ƶ’s performance was consistently ahead of the Ƶ online non-food retail market and represents growth in market share during the period.”
Very CEO Lionel Desclée said: “Our team delivered a brilliant range of products, strong pricing, an engaging new marketing campaign, and an improved online experience to give families everything they needed this Christmas.
“As expected in the current economic climate, consumers were on the lookout for amazing deals. We served these to existing customers and plenty of new customers during our Black Friday campaign with games consoles, wireless earbuds and perfume among our best sellers.
“Whilst we are pleased with these results, we also know that the year ahead will be challenging for all retailers. However, our operating model, which combines multi-category digital retail and flexible ways to pay, will remain resilient and continue to provide families with a one-stop-shop for everything they need.”
The busiest day of the festive season was November 27, when 205,000 items were processed. In total over the period some 6.9m items were processed at Skygate, Very’s automated fulfilment centre in the East Midlands.
Very’s Christmas ad campaign “Let’s make It Sparkle” featured flamboyant flamingos Kerry, Terry and Cherry. Kantar ranked it the retailer’s most successful ad to date and the second most persuasive Christmas ad of 2023 across all industries.
