Dr Martens feels the heat after summer knocked boot sales

Dr Martens has blamed this year’s record hot summer for knocking demand for its signature boots as UK sales slumped by more than a fifth.

The British bootmaker revealed UK sales plunged by a worse-than-expected 21.3% on a constant currency basis over its first half to September 26.

Overall, group sales dropped 9.8% to £290.4 million, or 9.2% lower with exchange rates stripped out.

This saw half-year pre-tax losses widen to £8.5 million from £11 million a year earlier.

Shares in the FTSE 250 firm slumped more than 16% in morning trading on Thursday.

It said while there were signs of improvement in October after a “very weak” Sepetmber, group sales last month remained broadly in line with the overall mid-teen percentage declines seen in its second quarter.

Despite the cooler weather, falling sales continues to be driven by lower demand for its boots, according to the firm.

Chief executive Ije Nwokorie said the first half performance was “disappointing”.

He said: “During the first half we experienced a challenging period for our core boots category, which was impacted by the exceptionally hot summer weather.

“While we saw resilience in shoes and sandals, this was not enough to mitigate the decline in boots.

“We lessened the impact on profit from the revenue decline with good gross margin performance and continued tight cost control.”

The company added it continues to “navigate a challenging trading environment” and that “trading in the key weeks ahead will be crucial to determining our full year outturn”.

Most analysts are expecting Dr Martens to report full-year underlying pre-tax profits of £65.7 million, up from £55 million in 2025-26.