Like-for-like sales growth of clothing retailers during Christmas in the UK 2020

The fashion and apparel retail winner of the 2020 Christmas holiday season in the United Kingdom (UK) was In The Style, an e-commerce fashion company active since 2014. In the fourth quarter of the year, In The Style experienced a like-for-like sales growth of 169 percent. Other online fashion retailers like Boohoo and ASOS followed in the style with 40 and 36 percent growth rates during this period, respectively. The positive sales and revenue growth performance of online retailers was due to the lockdown measures introduced during December in the UK, which had non-essential stores close in an effort to contain COVID-19 during the holiday season and beyond.

Christmas spending moves to online

More data shows that even before the pandemic, consumers’ holiday shopping patterns were showing increased interest in online. On high streets, retail footfall during the season fell, whereas online sales are growing, if with slower rates. In the fashion sector, this can be observed in the retail performance of traditional retailers such as Next, Primark, and M&S, whose Christmas sales slumped.

Boohoo is here to stay

Boohoo’s success is not seasonal, though. The fashion retailer delivered exceptional financial results in the past few years, tripling its profits since 2016. Founded in 2006, the retailer is relatively new, but already a favorite especially with Gen Z and Millennial shoppers. The company’s other brands, PrettyLittleThing and Nasty Gal, are growing extremely popular online as well, with the former performing the highest growth rate in brand searches on the Google’s UK platform in 2019.