Summer weather keeps sales up on the high street

The first real week of summer weather helped sales remain positive, according to accountants and business advisers BDO LLP. Figures from BDO’s High Street Sales Tracker for the week ending 23 May 2010 show overall, like-for-like sales up by 3.7 per cent on the same week last year. 

Non-fashion -2.2%

Despite that fact that health & beauty, leisure and gifting were noticeably down, luxury and general household performed well.

Fashion +5.8%

The popularity of seasonal summer ranges helped takings advance. Footwear, in particular, was up with womenswear not far behind.

Homewares +7.2%

Sales remained elevated with solid gains made in most categories. Furniture and textiles performed strongly and smaller ticket items also sold reasonably well.

Non-store +42.3%

Sales made via non-store channels continued to grow strongly due to high demand caused by an increased amount of product range available online compared to this time last year.

Don Williams, Head of Retail at BDO LLP commented:

“Last weekend’s exceptional weather helped fashion, seasonal and homeware retailers report solid results as shoppers were in the mood to stock up on summer clothing. The good weather, however, negatively impacted stores with a focus on indoor goods”.

-Ends-

Notes to Editors

BDO LLP operates across the UK with some 3,000 partners and staff. BDO LLP is a UK limited liability partnership and a UK Member Firm of BDO International. BDO in Northern Ireland is a separate partnership operating under a licence agreement.  BDO International is a world-wide network of public accounting firms, called BDO Member Firms.  Each BDO Member Firm is an independent legal entity world-wide and no BDO Member Firm is responsible for the acts and omissions of another member. The network is coordinated by BDO Global Coordination B.V., incorporated in the Netherlands with its statutory seat in Eindhoven (trade register registration number 33205251) and with an office at Boulevard de la Woluwe 60, 1200 Brussels, Belgium, where the International Executive Office is located.

The combined fee income of all the BDO Member Firms was $5.14 billion in 2008. The global network has 1,095 offices in 110 countries and more than 44,000 partners and staff provide business advisory services throughout the world.

BDO LLP and BDO Northern Ireland are both separately authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority to conduct investment business.

BDO is the brand name for the BDO International network and for each of the BDO Member Firms.