Marks & Spencer has revealed a drop in its clothing, gifts and homeware divisions over the Christmas period as delivery problems hit figures for the third quarter.

Although the company saw “very good” results from its food section, general merchandise saw a 5.8% drop in like-for-like sales, impacted by disruption at its distribution centre in Castle Donington and unusually warm autumn months which hit clothing sales.

Meanwhile, the company’s food division saw a great quarter, demonstrated by a strong outperformance of the market with 2.8% sales growth and record sales of 17% in the key Christmas week.

Chief executive, Marc Bolland said: "M&S had a very good Christmas in Food. We delivered record Christmas sales, strongly outperforming the market. We had a difficult quarter in General Merchandise, dominated by unseasonal conditions and an unsatisfactory performance in our e-commerce distribution centre. We maintained our focus on General Merchandise gross margin, with guidance unchanged”.

Overall, M&S insisted that it had received good feedback from its customers regarding womenswear ranges despite the unseasonal conditions and added that the business is performing well in overseas markets such as India.