Freemans reports buoyant Christmas, Julien Macdonald collab is "standout" success

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Feb 3, 2023

Freemans said on Friday that it had “a cracker of a Christmas” with sales in the eight weeks to the end of the year up as much as 23%. Its customer numbers also topped a million, which was up 65% from two years ago when the retailer relaunched at the start of a digital brand transformation.

It means the brand’s growth has been outstripping that of the wider market.

The Christmas performance was aided by the Find The One Campaign featuring Janette Manrara and Aljaz Skorjanec, complemented with digital and social marketing (owned and earned), all of which contributed to the Freemans brand enjoying its highest brand awareness ever.

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Freemans CEO Ann Steer said products designed to keep people warm and save money were strong (such as thermal underwear, electric blankets and air fryers), while designer range collaborations  did well too, especially the one with Julien Macdonald. This was a “standout success as people celebrated with a 'dress-up-and-socialising-in-confidence' Christmas”.

This bodes well for the spring season as the company has more exclusive collections launching across fashion and home, as well as the latest iteration of its Ways To Save initiative.

Steer added that the “transformation of the business continues at pace in our ambition to be the digital department store of choice”.

The Freemans report makes it the latest in a string of big names to have enjoyed a buoyant Christmas season. While online retailers Boohoo Group and ASOS turned in weaker festive figures, many others in both online and physical retail have defied the gloomy backdrop.