Ted Baker sales jump 50 per cent in a year
Ted Baker has reported strong sales in Q2 with revenue up 50 per cent compared to last year despite the ongoing impact of Covid-19 on retail.
Store sales surged by +142 per cent between April 25 to August 14 compared to the same period a year ago. While sales were down -45 per cent compared to pre-pandemic levels the results showed signs of a recovery.
Rachel Osborne, Chief Executive Officer for Ted Baker, said that the company was making “encouraging progress” with trading “in line with expectations.”
“Combined with our robust balance sheet and strong cash management we are well placed for the future. It is still early days in the recovery, but we are confident that Ted is starting to emerge from Covid a stronger and more resilient business,” she continued.
With the return of shoppers to city centres the group has pivoted its marketing strategy towards its brick and mortar stores. eCommerce sales for the period were down 25 per cent, representing 39 per cent of total retail sales and the company opened two new stores in Exeter and Bromley despite facing a difficult pandemic year.
Ted Baker’s ad campaigns have clearly paid off with a recent YouGov survey recognising the label as the second most popular luxury brand in the UK.
However, a spokesperson for Hargreaves Lansdown, a digital wealth manager which controls £135.5bn of customers’ assets, shared their skepticism about the brand’s financial recovery.
Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst, said “what is particularly worrying is that online sales have fallen back at a time when the group most needed to inject its digital operations with a big dose of energy.”
While Streeter acknowledge “bright spots” among the challenges she stressed that “there is so little breathing space, buying teams will have to nail the right look season after season, to bring back the custom the company has been elusively searching for.”
The group’s share price was up 1.5 per cent today and has jumped 57.53 per cent this year to date.
Read more: Ted Baker upgrades London HQ to Gorgeous Brown Building in Fitzrovia