Selfridges fails to profit from Christmas

The Oxford Street store was hit by the rail disruption

Top UK department store Selfridges has reported flat sales volumes during the Christmas period, and blamed disruptions on the rail network for the poor performance.

At its flagship store in Oxford Street, sales rose just 1% in the six weeks to 6 January, compared with the same period a year earlier.

The company's chief executive, Vittorio Radice, said the shop relied on shoppers living outside London to deliver a large proportion of sales during the holiday season, but these had been kept away because of the trouble on the rails.

The group's overall performance was boosted by its store in Manchester's Trafford Centre.

Opened just a few years ago, the store reported sales up by 22%.

In the run-up to Christmas, the company had warned that sales might disappoint, especially when compared to the shopping spree for the millennium celebrations at the end of 1999.