Snow storm claims more victims on the High Street

By RUPERT STEINER FOR THE DAILY MAIL
Updated: 17:33 EST, 6 January 2011

Mother and baby retailer Mothercare is the latest chain to issue a January profits warning as chief executive Ben Gordon came up with a novel excuse for disappointing Christmas sales.

He blamed poor festive trading on the wrong type of shoppers, saying the wintry conditions prevented mums and mums-to-be from reaching his out-of-town stores.

Gordon told the Mail: 'Our customers are pregnant women and mothers with new-born babies who understandably would not go out in the bad weather.'

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He was not alone as other retailers also jumped on the snow excuse, sending a fresh chill down the High Street.

Both greeting cards chain Clinton Cards and jeweller Theo Fennell sounded the alert on profits yesterday, citing the weather.

Mothercare (down 33p to 565p) claimed the snow had wiped 4 per cent off underlying UK sales which fell 5.8 per cent for the 12 weeks to January 1.

It relies on toys to bring in half its sales over the crucial December trading period but has been facing fierce competition from supermarket rivals.

Analysts believe this may have been the true cause of the dismal performance.

Nick Bubb, an analyst at broker Arden Partners, said he had an 'uneasy feeling that there was more to the poor December sales than just the snow'.

But Gordon said: 'Sales were indeed impacted by the adverse weather conditions particularly in our out-of-town stores.'

He added that Mothercare's international business is growing rapidly but not fast enough to mitigate a miss on group annual profits. 'We expect profit for the full year to be below current market expectations,' said Gordon.

He denied he had been overcautious in bringing forward the cut-off date for Christmas orders on the Mothercare website, saying: 'We didn't want to let customers down and for children not to have toys before Christmas.'

Elsewhere shoppers managed to brave the Arctic conditions - visiting similar out-of-town sites - to buy their Christmas booze from Majestic Wine (up 15.5p to 399p). It saw underlying sales rise 3.7 per cent for the nine weeks to January 3.

Majestic chief executive Steve Lewis pointedly thanked 'our loyal customers for battling through December's dreadful weather conditions'.

Shoppers also struggled to retailer BrightHouse, which sells goods to consumers in instalments. It saw a 9 per cent rise in underlying sales in December.

But Clinton Cards and Theo Fennell saw revenues fall 2.1 per cent, and 7 per cent respectively.