In quotes: Retail leaders on Christmas trading

James Daunt – Waterstones, managing director

“Everybody will take Monday and Tuesday off. Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday wil be absolutely monstrous. My worry is the logistical problems to get the stores through it.

“We’re selling so may tens of thousands of lines, generally it’s fine because you respond to sales. But when you get Christmas on a Wednesday it’s a pig of a problem. Everything’s got to be in on a Friday.

“We will be a little bit down generally. It will be very weather dependent in the last few days. We didn’t have a very good product. No celeb memoir has taken off. We have Alex  Ferguson but nothing else.”

Mark Price – Waitrose, managing director

“Every year retailers say that Christmas is late - but this year you can see their point.

“The mid-week fall of Christmas 2013 means we have a very large shift of trade into next week and we’re expecting sales to be significantly ahead of the same week last year.

“Shoppers will leave their shopping a little later, particularly the bulk of their fresh food shopping, and our two busiest trading days are still ahead of us.

“I’m always confident about Christmas; people trade up and food is an affordable luxury during the festive period. Christmas at Waitrose will be bigger and better than before.”

Jacqueline Gold – Ann Summers, chief executive

“Although Christmas falls mid-week this year, I wouldn’t expect that to impact too heavily on the overall trading period. However, as customers are becoming much more savvy with their purchases I think it’s likely that the high-street will see a last-minute surge as shoppers hold off for the best discounts.

“At Ann Summers we have seen promising sales online throughout December and in the run up to Christmas. People are changing their attitudes towards the way in which they shop, for example we have seen a rise in customers browsing online before they visit the stores - this just goes to show how important it is to offer your customers a joined-up multi-channel experience in order to give them a reason to shop with us. The customer journey is more important than ever before.”

Dalton Philips – Morrisons, chief executive

“The fact that the big day falls on a Wednesday is great for customers. Our busiest day will usually be Dec 23^rd and last year that fell on a Sunday where there is just six hours of trading. This year customers will be able to pick up their pre-Christmas fresh food shop on days where there will be more flexible hours.

“Because Christmas Day falls on a Wednesday, customers will take their opportunity to complete their shopping for fresh food – the turkey, the sprouts, the pate – on the Monday and Tuesday. So yes for fresh food they will leave it to the final week.”

Sebastian James – Dixons, chief executive

“Wednesday is not a necessarily a better day in that there will be no more trade overall. Boxing Day week will be more spread out over the whole week. When you have Boxing Day on a Saturday you are spilling winds so you cannot possibly have enough people in store to serve them properly. Now you have a whole week to make sure they get good service and attention.

“It’s good for us but overall for stores it does not make a blind bit of difference to overall Christmas trade.”

Malcolm Walker – Iceland, founder and chairman

“Sales are flat. It’s not good at all. We are doing better than Morrisons, Asda and Tesco. The IGD figures show they are not doing well.

“Things started to flatten off for us in the last three to four weeks in the run up to Christmas. The discounters are doing amazingly well, Aldi is not just a discounter now, it’s a supermarket.

“You never know with Christmas as you can’t really compare it to last year and people always leave it late. We are just holding our breath and hoping it will come.”

Jim McCarthy – Poundland, chief executive

“Poundland has continued to trade well during the busy festive period and we anticipate a record Christmas for the business.  There is evidence that customers are expecting further bargains on the high street and with Christmas Day being a day later, footfall will reflect this as we approach the final weekend before the big day. 

“At Poundland we continue to do what we do best – offer our customers great value across a range of top brands and own label products.  Festive treats and decorations are flying off the shelves -  including six million mince pies and one million packs of festive tinsel!”

Colin Henry – Jaeger, chief executive

“Because a large proportion of the high street is on Sale we expect retail trading conditions will continue to be tough. Jaeger expects to generate like-for-like sales growth of 5% in December on a much lower level of stock than last year due to sales of our outerwear and knitwear. We went on sale as planned last Saturday.

“People are leaving it to the last minute and Saturday will be the biggest shopping day for us.”

Gary Grant – The Entertainer, managing director

“The first two days of this week have not been as strong as I would have liked. It’s as though people are leaving Christmas shopping later this year. Last year it seemed as though people wrote off Christmas Eve as a shpping day but this year there are two days to shop.

“This weekend is critically important. It will be the busiest weekend of the year. This week will be greater than the first six weeks across January and February. We have put a huge amount into the logistics [to support stores and customer deliveries] and we have been chasing the last ‘must-have’ items from suppliers.”

Hussein Lalani – 99p Stores, commercial director

“This Christmas has definitely been better than last Christmas and we are trading above expectations as we have better sales and footfall has increased.”

“We also have the extra day of trading this year [because Christmas is on a Wednesday] and I see this as a real extra day of shopping rather than sales being spread out over the day.

“Saturday will be the biggest shopping day.”

Simon Roberts - Alliance Boots, UK health and beauty managing director

“This Christmas we know our customers are looking for convenience and great value and, as they are shopping later than ever, we are focused on creating the most accessible and inspiring final shopping week.  We are delivering this both in store and online, providing what we believe to be a market leading “order-online and collect-in-store” service right up to 23 December.  

“This year has seen our customers embrace multichannel and Christmas is no exception but no matter how our customers want to shop with us, we have amazing offers with some of the best value on the high street, longer opening hours and even more staff in store to advise and deliver great customer care.”

Will Kernan – The White Company, chief executive

“Christmas is going to be late and hard, so there will be more of a peak towards the end.

“Some retailers have gone on Sale earlier and some went into a full sale at the end of November.  It is clear that the depth of cuts is bigger than last year because for some mid-market retailers October and November has been tough, so there has been some stock build-up. It has been slightly tough for us. We are still well ahead of our expectations but given the level of discounting activity and the slow reactions of some big high street retailers could mean there will be a busy Sale period.

“I think there were expectations that because consumer sentiment is improving it would be a bumper Christmas but the reality is that although confidence may be up, customers don’t have more money in their pockets.”

Game – Ian Chambers, chief digital officer

“We will have a brilliant Christmas as two new consoles have come out, the Xbox One and Playstation4 . It’s the start of a new cycle, we’re three times up on where we were last year. The demand has been huge.

“We expect the remaining days to continue to be massive. It will be an epic weekend.”