Dr Jeff Bray on BBC Radio Solent

10 January 2013

Senior Lecturer in Marketing and Retail Management Dr Jeff Bray was on BBC Radio Solent's breakfast show talking about the performance of retailers over the Christmas period.

Jeff told presenter Julian Clegg that the results were "interesting".

He said: "The retail market is clearly very competitive at the moment, but there is some evidence that the retailers that are doing a good job are actually seeing quite healthy results, with some very good results coming out of this Christmas - as well as challenging ones."

The retail results for Tesco came out while Jeff was on air, and he said that the supermarket giant appeared to have performed "very well" over Christmas, and better than other supermarket chains.

He added that non-food stores - such as John Lewis - also seemed to have performed "phenomenally well" over the festive period.

But, he said, it was too early to say what contribution online shopping had made to the figures, and whether stores had actually made any money from increased sales figures, as they may have heavily discounted products to get people to buy them.

"[Some stores] may have sold fewer goods but done so more profitably."

You can listen to Jeff on BBC Radio Solent for the next seven days here

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