Mountain Warehouse today reported record Christmas trading with sales up almost 12% to £84.7m in the 13 weeks to 6 January.
The group, which specialises in selling outdoor clothing and equipment, also enjoyed a bumper Black Friday with online sales passing £1m on a single day for the first time in its 21-year history.
The company served over three million customers during the 13-week festive period with bestsellers including over 500,000 pairs of socks, almost a million fleeces, over 500,000 winter jackets and over 400,000 pairs of gloves.
Mountain Warehouse, which started with a single store in December 1997, now has 340 stores in nine counties and plans to increase this number to 400 over the next 12 to 18 months, creating over 600 new jobs.
It opened a new customer services centre in Coventry in November, to support its online growth, which will create 50 jobs in its first year of operation.
The group has signed an agreement to open a new distribution centre in Poznan, Poland in the Spring, to support the continuing store opening programme in Europe. Mark Neale said: “The business is continuing to perform strongly despite the economic backdrop.
“We had a bumper Black Friday weekend with total sales up 20% and online sales of over £1m for the first time in a single day.
“The prior year’s performance was exceptional due to the cold weather and widespread snow we saw in the run up to Christmas 2017. I’m therefore really pleased to report this year’s strong performance despite the unusually mild weather we have been experiencing.
“This puts us well on course for another record year and as a result we are continuing to invest in more stores, new territories and our online business.
“We are also building our infrastructure with new customer service and distribution centres to make sure we keep delivering for the over 10 million people who shop with us each year.”
