N Brown gets caught in the snow

The firm, which is best known for the Simply Be, Marisota and Jacamo brands, reported like-for-like sales growth of 1.2 per cent in the 19 weeks to January 8, but the weather disruption cost it around 1 per cent in lost sales.

N Brown – a specialist in clothes for the fuller figure – is hopeful it can claw back some of the impact as the mailings backlog clears and given that trading had been encouraging before the extreme weather set in.

Sales recovered after uncertainty surrounding the General Election and emergency budget and were up around 1.9 per cent between July and August, rising to 2.1 per cent in the first six weeks of the second half of the financial year.

The firm is also driving profit margins higher by discounting less and as fewer customers fall behind with repayments.