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Signet posts best Christmas results in 12 years

by Sarah Jordan

Signet Jewelers Limited, the largest retailer across the US, UK and Canada, has announced its sales for the eight weeks ending December 27 2014, citing a 9.7% increase in sales across the UK jewellery division and its best trading results for 12 years.

Within the UK jewellery division, Ernest Jones performed the strongest with an 11.9% increase in same store sales in 2014, compared to the same period in 2013. H Samuel experienced gains of 8.1%. In total, both retailers recorded total sales of $215.1 million (£142.9m), with H Samuel securing the majority share of sales at $121.7m (£80.8m).

While growth in the UK is thought to be due to diamond sales, watches as well as the growing popularity of Black Friday-style shopping days were key drivers.

Across the whole Group, ecommerce sales increased 90.9%, and, excluding the Zale division, increased 20.0%. Ecommerce has now become a significantly higher percentage of Signet’s overall sales, which the trend expected to continue into 2015.

Signet chief executive officer Mark Light, commented: “Our Company performed well during the holiday period delivering increased same store sales across all divisions driven by the continued successful execution of our product, marketing and omni-channel strategies. This is particularly pleasing given the amount of change we have dealt with during the course of the fiscal year.

“Our UK division led our performance with an outstanding 9.7% comp increase – its best in 12 years and on top of a very strong comp last year. These results were driven by fresh, trend-right merchandise offerings and strategic collaboration with the Sterling division.”

The company also highlighted a 3.5% increase in same store sales across its Zale division, and a 2.5% boost across its Sterling Jewelers division in the United States and Canada.

Light continued: “We were very pleased with the performance of our Zale division, which began to benefit from our investments and initiatives in merchandising, store team member training, and advertising. Our Sterling division performed well in a highly promotional environment. We resisted deep promotions and protected profitability which helped enable us to reaffirm Signet’s financial guidance. I would like to thank all Signet team members very much for their dedication, hard work, and fine execution of our strategies during the holiday selling period."

James Buttery

Editor of WatchPro, the WatchPro Hot 100 and The Luxury Report.

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