N Brown struggles through the snow

Mail order was a tough business when the snow hit in December, but N Brown struggled through to lift like-for-like sales by 1.2%.Total group revenue increased by 4.6% in the 19 weeks to 8 January and Brown says trading was encouraging from late October to mid-December "but the extreme weather conditions eventually affected customers who were concerned whether their Christmas orders would be delivered on time."There is also backlog of mail to clear as a result of those weather conditions, with catalogues and statements delayed in the last four weeks.Online sales increased by 26% to account for 47% of group sales. Menswear and footwear saw strong growth, as did the Marisota and Jacamo brands. Gross margin impoved by 1.2% in the period compared with last year. This improvement has been driven by higher product margins, due to less discounting, and further reductions in the charge for bad debts."The board is confident we can deliver performance in line with our expectations for the year to February 2011. Looking further ahead the combination of pressure on customers' disposable income and significant cost inflation makes consumer expenditure more difficult to judge," chief executive Alan White said.