Signet Jewelers sales ‘fall short’ over Christmas

Diamond jewellery retailer Signet Jewelers has reported a 1.3% decrease in total same store sales for the nine week period ending 5 January.

According to the group, holiday season performance “fell short of expectations”, as early improvements in refreshed merchandise assortment, digital marketing and OmniChannel were offset by “larger than expected declines in legacy product lines”.

Additionally, the competitive promotional environment it saw early in the season intensified in December and, despite its increased promotional investments, the group experienced reduced traffic during key December gifting weeks.

David Bouffard, vice president, corporate affairs, at Signet Jewelers, said: “These holiday results reinforce the need to take even faster action to improve our financial and operational performance.

“We will move decisively to improve profitability through aggressively optimizing our cost structure and continuing to right-size our store base, as well as more effectively managing our inventory.”