The Fragrance Shop’s like-for-likes increased by 5% over the Christmas period after it benefited from last minute sales.

The Fragrance Shop

Total sales increased by 11.8% during the five-week period to December 27 after the retailer added an extra 18 stores to its portfolio, taking the total number of stores in December to 171.

The Fragrance Shop managing director Peter King said: “Black Friday saw an earlier surge in sales this year, bringing trading forward, but last minute sales continued to give us our largest sales days with Christmas Eve proving the busiest day of the year.”

Luxury products performed strongly with Chanel’s Coco Mademoiselle, YSL’s new launch Black Opium and Paco Rabanne’s 1 Million, Lady Million and Invictus all featured in the top 10 best-selling perfumes.

The Fragrance Shop chief executive Sanjay Vadera said: “Our drive for innovation in the fragrance retailing industry has seen us launch a one-hour click-and-collect service.”

The perfume retailer is attempting to bring the in-store service to its online offering with its ‘Try it First’ service, which sends customers a fragrance sample with online orders.

The service allows customers to try the fragrance first before opening the bottle to give them the opportunity to send back the perfume if they do not like the smell.