Sosandar’s trading update for the festive quarter on Tuesday talked of momentum continuing to build “with significant growth in own-site revenue”.
Sosandar
The womenswear retailer also said that trading was in line with full-year expectations in the last three months of 2025.
Revenue rose 10% to £13.4 million with own-site revenue rising 27%. And the gross margin of 66% was up from 64.7% in the prior year, driven by an improved intake margin.
It’s part of the brands at M&S offer and its strength came despite M&S continuing to trade with stock levels below the prior year following its well-publicised cyber incident, but with stock levels expected to normalise by the imminent spring season.
Sosandar also said it has seen an encouraging performance through stores, with sales ahead of the prior year.
It all means that the strong trading of H1 continued in H2, which is good news for the brand that had previously seen a slowdown in its fast growth.
As for the strong own-site performance, the company said it saw higher site traffic, improved conversion rates and increased order volumes from new and existing customers.
Co-CEOs Ali Hall and Julie Lavington said that “the foundations have been laid for sustained profitable and cash-generative growth and we are excited for what 2026 will bring”.
AI-assisted shopping is no longer a niche technology. Around 41% of consumers now use assistants to search for products, 33% to check reviews and 31% to find promotions, with Asia outpacing the West in these practices, according to a major study.
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Entitled “Own the agentic commerce experience,” the study was conducted by IBM with 18,000 consumers across 23 countries. It finds that the use of virtual assistants has surged by 62% in two years.
Contrary to popular belief, however, the digitisation of the purchase journey is not the exclusive preserve of Gen Z, as Baby Boomers are already embracing AI, albeit with a persistent mistrust that platforms and e-tailers will need to address.
The study highlights a striking take-up of AI among seniors, with usage soaring by 92% among Baby Boomers and 82% among Generation X. While the physical point of sale remains a mainstay for 72% of shoppers, the customer journey is now decisively hybrid, with IBM identifying five broad consumer profiles.
Of these five profiles, “Smart Spenders” dominate the market, accounting for 46% of the panel. These buyers move between the web and in-store with a pragmatic aim: optimising their budget. At the other end of the spectrum, “Affluent Leaders who embrace AI” account for just 7% of volume, but they are a strategic target: three-quarters use AI to find products, and they are also highly active in social commerce.
The analysis segments the remainder of the panel into 19% “Conscious Connectors,” digitally engaged consumers seeking ethics and personalisation; 21% “Habit-Driven Shoppers,” loyal to physical retail out of routine; and 7% “Price-First Pragmatists,” a cohort resistant to digital channels and motivated exclusively by very low prices.
Resilience of strong brands
In an inflationary climate affecting even affluent households, AI is accompanying a shift towards increasingly “surgical” consumption. While 39% of buyers are trading down to cheaper alternatives and 29% to retailer own brands, overall consumption is not collapsing.
The study shows that strong brands are holding firm: 25% of customers remain loyal to their favourite labels despite price rises, and 20% are making trade-offs, saving on basics to treat themselves in “pleasure” or wellbeing categories.
Persistent mistrust
Yet the success of AI in customer journeys exposes a major point of friction in the agentic model. The system relies on extensive use of customer data, and mistrust remains widespread. Although 52% of consumers say they are comfortable sharing information, 83% simultaneously express concerns about security.
The consequences of a breach would be immediate: 23% of affluent consumers say they have already switched brands following a security incident. This mistrust also extends to the agentic tool itself, with only 24% of respondents placing complete trust in AI recommendations.
For now, companies are struggling to respond to this challenge. While 70% of executives consider integrating AI crucial to streamlining the experience, more than half (54%) are hampered by technical barriers to data integration, as well as a lack of in-house expertise, which for the time being limits the use of agents to basic customer service functions rather than transactional purchase assistance, the study indicates.
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Budget footwear and accessories retailer Shoe Zone had issued a preliminary update for its year to September 2025 last October and the news wasn’t great.
Shoe Zone
It issued the final figures on Tuesday along with an update for Q1 of its new year, and the news doesn’t get much better.
“Trading conditions remained challenging in the first quarter of the new financial year,” it said, “with revenue down on forecast, reflecting ongoing macroeconomic pressures that continue to weigh on consumer confidence resulting in lower footfall on the UK High Street, alongside the highly adverse Government fiscal policies. The November 2025 budget included an additional increase in the National Living Wage, raising our cost base further, with broader measures not materially improving consumer sentiment. In light of these conditions, we expect a profit before tax of approximately £1m for the financial year ended 3 October 2026”.
The full extent of how bad that £1 million figure will be can be seen from the pre-tax profit of £3.3 million for the year recently ended and £10.1 million for the year before.
But it added that despite the headwinds, the board “remains focused on disciplined cost management and delivering our strategic priorities to ensure resilience and long-term growth, as demonstrated by our strong year-end cash position, which increased by 64% to £5.9 million compared to the prior year. Cash generation is expected to continue into 2026, leaving the business well positioned to capitalise when conditions improve”.
So let’s look at the confirmed figures for the year that ended in September 2025. Revenue fell to £149.1 million from £161.3 million and revenue via its shops dropped to £113.1 million from £126.1 million. Digital revenue edged up to £36 million from £35.2 million. We’ve already mentioned the profit before tax and net cash figures.
The company had 269 stores at the end of the period compared to 297 a year earlier and of these, 201 were larger-format stores compared to 185 the year before. It also said it’s been making savings on annual lease renewals.
Also on the plus side, it said that sales were good last year when there was a reason to buy, such as during the warm summer and the back-to-school period. But overall discretionary spending remain subdued as consumers were cautious even when buying low-priced products.
Another positive is the fact that while total revenue fell by 7.6%, given that the company was trading out of a 9.4% reduction in stores, it’s clear that the strategy of upgrading to larger-format locations is paying off to an extent.
Meanwhile digital revenues rising 2.3% were supported by improved conversion from its free next-day delivery on all orders via its own site as well as strong sales via Amazon.
The company’s store refit and relocation programme is on track to complete by the end of 2027, at which point its capital expenditure will further reduce, and it will “accelerate our digital strategy, building on recent strong results”.
It plans to invest approximately £4.5 million next year on 23 store projects and Head Office infrastructure changes including IT projects and new vehicles.
And it expects product margins to improve next year, supported by stable container prices over the past six months. It said its buying and shipping teams “are doing an exceptional job of managing the direct-from-factory supply chain, which is still volatile, and we are confident we are performing better than the market average. As we refit existing stores to our larger format, the branded mix will continue to form a higher proportion of our overall sales”.
THG’s trading update on Tuesday showed a record revenue performance in the second half and outperformance in its Beauty division during Q4.
THG
The company said H2 (the six months to the end of December) saw group revenue up 6.7% year on year, well ahead of the 3.9%-5.9% guidance range.
THG Beauty delivered 5.5% adjusted H2 revenue growth, also easily ahead of its guidance that had been only around +1%-+3%. THG Nutrition was up 9.2%.
In Q4 alone, THG Beauty revenue rose 2.2% to £370.2 million and was up 6.4% on a continuing constant currency basis.
Overall, the company said Q4 was the strongest quarter of FY25 for the business, supported by a successful November and December performance.
And for the full year, revenue growth of 2.3% was the first year of growth since 2021 as well as an encouraging recovery from the H1 revenue decline of 2.5%.
As for THG Beauty specifically, its strength saw it turning in its best Q4 growth performance since Q4 2021. It was driven by Lookfantastic (+16.2%) in the UK and Ireland. But the effect of discontinued activities and asset disposals (including the sale of the luxury portfolio) impacted full-year and Q4 2025 reported revenue growth by 460bps and 370bps, respectively.
On the revenue growth side for its continuing operations, the company that also owns Dermstore and Cult Beauty said Beauty’s Q4 performance was broad-based across categories, “helping deepen penetration in established and high-growth segments. Cosmetics and Skincare drove the strongest performance, with both gaining UK market share, alongside a record advent contribution”.
Lookfantastic had partnered with Uber Eats, “allowing London-based customers access to same-day delivery for a range of curated beauty and fragrance essentials, further supporting its focus on streamlining the product discovery and purchase experience”.
Within Own Brands, the Perricone MD performance improved in the period after a “challenging” H1, “driven by investment in brand and formulation, alongside expanded B2B distribution”.
Also, 60 ESPA SKUs were launched in over 100 M&S stores and online, “building brand visibility and aid[ing] awareness for the luxury spa and skincare brand, leveraging access to the Sparks reward scheme members”.
CEO Matthew Moulding said: “We finished 2025 on a high with our best quarter of the year thanks to a strong November and December period. In THG Beauty, our strategy to focus on core categories and territories is delivering clear results, with Lookfantastic UK achieving exceptional growth. We continue to accelerate our digital leadership, prioritising high-margin prestige brands and enhancing personalisation by increased use of AI and virtual tools.
“We enter the new year with strong trading momentum and a clear focus on continuing to deliver quality, value and newness for our customers.”
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