Ted Baker, the British designer brand, toasted the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee with ginger beer in its stores and a regal uplift in sales.
The fashion specialist decked out its windows displays globally with traditional British themes, such as a seaside claw machine that picks up fake diamonds, in the week before, and after the Jubilee. It also ran a series of white-red-and-blue coloured events in shops, such as a cockney Pearly King & Queen singing songs in its Regent Street store, as well as giving away “lashings of ginger beer” to customers.
Ray Kelvin, founder and chief executive of Ted Baker, who has a 40% stake, said: “We are a British company and British exporter so every store whether it was in Australia or Malaysia had a British theme.”
The royal initiative helped Ted Baker deliver a 16.2% rise in total sales over the 19 weeks to June 9. Its revenues were boosted by a 12% jump in floor space from new stores in London, Tokyo and Japan, as well as concessions in the US, Spain and Ireland. This implies a 4.2% uplift in like-for-like sales.
Ted Baker’s growing international business will get a further shot in the arm, when it opens a flagship store on New York’s Fifth Avenue in August. It will also introduce new shops in Hong Kong, Canada, Beijing and Shanghai over the coming months.
