The Next fashion chain said sales were up marginally in August, September and October, despite the big problems facing the UK high street.
As the cost of living crisis bites the UK retail giant said year-on-year sales were up 0.4 per cent for the period – slightly ahead of initial expectations. September in particular saw a decent trading.
In-store sales for the period were 3.1 per cent up on last year while online sales were almost 2 per cent down.
The Leicestershire-based group said it still expects to hit profits of £840 million for the year, which would be 2.1 per cent up on a year before.
In a short trading update the business said: “Full price sales in the last five weeks have been up 1.4 per cent, boosted by one particularly strong week at the end of September, when temperatures dropped and sales of heavier weight products improved.”
Back in September Next downgraded its profit forecasts for the year from a previous projection of £860 million after a weak August.
Then the business had said it seemed “inevitable” that growth in the clothing and homewares sector would slow or even reverse as rising prices for everything from the food and mortgages to gas and electricity started to bite.
Finance director Amanda James told the PA news agency at the time: “These were fed through from August and if we had seen the weakness that month continue to September maybe you could link the performance to prices.
“But I think the improvement in September proves it is not simply that and we saw a strong performance in the first half of the year, where we had implemented 4 per cent price increases.”
