Edinburgh Woollen Mill Group, the fashion-to-textiles retailer that owns the Peacocks chain, recorded strong sales across its brands during the five weeks to January 3.
Like-for-like sales increased by 2.7% at Edinburgh Woollen Mill (EWM), 5.2% at fashion retailer Peacocks, and 4.5% at homeware retailer Ponden Home.
EWM’s stores in Tayside and Fife are at Dundee, St Andrews, Cupar, Dunfermline, Blairgowrie and Pitlochry.
There are Peacocks stores at Arbroath and Leven, and Ponden Home stores in Dundee and Dunfermline
Steve Simpson, group commercial director, said: “Each of our brands is driven by the needs of its customers. Together with our relentless focus on quality, value for money and customer experience, that continues to deliver increasing sales and strong margin growth.
“Our programme of store openings, together with the successful launch of a popular click-and-collect service across group websites, continued to make our brands more accessible to customers during 2014.
“We now plan to maintain the speed of expansion with more than 100 new stores in the next 12 months, while the launch of in-store ordering will further improve our customer-focused multi-channel offering and drive online sales.”
EWM, which has grown consistently to become a category leader in the over-40s customer segment, recorded an increase in like-for-like sales of 2.7% in the five weeks to January 3.
Total sales increased 6.2%, thanks in part to the opening of 15 new stores during the current financial year, including two in December.
Online sales rose 23.4% in the same five-week Christmas period, while there was also a significant improvement in gross margin on a like-for-like basis.
Peacocks, which has opened 43 new stores in the current financial year, including 11 in December, recorded a 5.2% boost in like-for-like sales in the five weeks to January 3, with a total sales increase of 11.1%.
Web sales grew 92.6%, while gross margin also saw a significant improvement on a like-for-like basis.
The Ponden Mill business also performed strongly over Christmas, with like-for-like sales growth of 4.5% and a significant improvement in gross margin.
A further 18 stores are planned before February next year, together with the launch of an e-commerce website and multi-channel platform.