Signet Jewelers is claiming that its ‘Path to Brilliance’ strategy is paying dividends as global sales rose by 9.5% in the group’s third quarter, which ended on October 31.

The figure is somewhat flattered by store closures over the past 12 months that meant the remaining stores improved sales by 15.1%.

E-commerce sales were $238.8 million, up 71.4%. Bricks-and-mortar same-store sales increased 6.8%.

“I’d like to express tremendous appreciation to our Signet team for their passion and strong execution of our Path to Brilliance strategy in the third quarter,” said Signet CEO Virginia Drosos.

“Our success came from a combination of factors including significant digital, product, and marketing innovations; our ability to capture pent-up demand as our stores reopened; and intentional efforts to capture early holiday shopping to help mitigate traditionally high in-store traffic days in December,” Drosos continued.

“We believe our Path to Brilliance strategy is working, and we are making progress toward our goal of being the strongest omnichannel player in our industry.

“The strategic choices and investments we’ve made — in both people and technology — over the past three years have enabled us to accelerate our transformation.

“We believe we will emerge from the pandemic stronger and more united. As we move to Q4, we recognise that the pandemic will continue to impact traditional in-store shopping behaviour.

“Equipped with new capabilities, Signet’s team is ready to meet our customers whenever and however they choose to shop this holiday and beyond,” she predicted.

In the UK, like-for-like sales at H Samuel and Ernest Jones rose by  7.8% year on year. Average transaction values increased 17.7% while the number of transactions declined 7.6%.

E-commerce sales grew 58.4% and bricks-and-mortar same store sales grew 0.5%.