Department stores see growth in luxury

Luxury items are giving the department store sector a boost, according to a new report from Verdict Research.
Department store business, worth £14.7b in the UK, had been on the slide up until 2006, but has since been growing. Now, Verdict predicts that this year it could out-perform the rest of the market, and it is the luxury outlets that are leading the field.

Harrods, Selfridges and Harvey Nichols have collectively outperformed the overall department store sector by almost 3%. Their year-on-year growth in 2007 was 11.3% compared with 2.7% generally.

John Lewis grew its market share from 16.8% in 2002 to 19.1% last year, widening the gap with Debenhams, says the report.