Beaverbrooks has said that December 2022 was a record-breaking month for the jeweller despite the unremittingly gloomy coverage of the economy and strained public services.
Managing director Anna Blackburn has revealed that sales were up 8%, year-on-year for the whole of December and 18% up in the final two weeks of the year.
Shoppers appear to have left their Christmas purchases much later than usual with Ms Blackburn reporting that Beaverbrooks stores had their highest footfall on December 23 since before the pandemic.
Customers may have been playing cat and mouse with retailers; wagering that there could be last minute bargains if they held their nerve.
The effect of postal strikes in December may also have been a factor because people did not trust that gifts bought online would arrive in time.
Ms Blackburn attributes the successful December to the “outstanding performance” of her teams and the loyalty of Beaverbrooks’ customers.
She also suggests there is a trend away from people bargain-hunting for fast fashion and instead committing to more special items.
“No doubt that there are challenging times ahead, however we are finding that people are spending more on considered purchases and shifting away from fast fashion towards a culture of purchasing more meaningful items and investing in pieces with longevity,” Ms Blackburn suggests.
December’s strong performance was not down to a particularly soft month in 2021 and came off the back of a record financial year in 2021-22.
Beaverbrooks turnover surged to £202.4 million for the financial year ending February, 2022.
The record-breaking result tops its previous best in 2019/20, the jeweller’s centenary year, by almost £60 million.
2022 was the first Christmas for Loupe, a new luxury retail brand with its first store open in Milton Keynes that is the first in the Beaverbrooks group to stock Rolex.
