LONDON (Bloomberg) — UK clothing sellers may struggle to increase holiday sales this year as the mildest winter in almost 350 years deters shoppers from buying coats and sweaters, retailers and analysts say.“Scarves, gloves and hats are not selling in the volumes they were last year,” Simon Fowler, customer service director at John Lewis Partnership Plc, the UK’s largest department store chain, said in a December 14 interview.

UK temperatures reached as high as 57 degrees Fahrenheit this month, compared with a seasonal average of about 36 degrees, according to Britain’s Meteorological Office. Retailers Debenhams Plc and Matalan Plc cited unseasonably warm September weather for a drop in sales. “As one of the mildest autumns on record ends, clothing markets are now thought to be lagging last year,” said Mark Charnock, an analyst at Investec Securities in London.

Same-store sales at the Next Plc chain, the UK’s third- largest clothing retailer, may fall as much as 5.5 percent in the fiscal second-half, Charnock said. Next spokesman Alistair Mackinnon-Musson declined to comment.

In December of last year, UK retail sales rose 2.6 percent, the most in 19 months, as shoppers snapped up food, jewellery and handbags, the British Retail Consortium said.

The period from November to January accounts for as much as 60 percent of annual revenue at some stores, the retail group said on its website.

“Many retailers are stuck in the old way of doing things, where they are getting coats and heavier clothes in too early, while the weather over the last ten or 15 years has been staying warmer later and later,” said Richard Fitzpatrick, head of research at Retailmap Ltd., a UK retail consultancy.

Fashion stores also are losing business as supermarkets such as Tesco Plc add clothing lines and shoppers buy more products online.

“Part of the reason why UK retailers are having a tough time is the inexorable rise of home shopping via the Internet,” Investec’s Charnock said.

ASOS Plc, a UK Internet retailer offering fashions similar to styles worn by celebrities, said last month that sales in the fiscal first-half ended September 30 surged 94 percent after doubling its number of lines.

UK fashion chains accounted for 62.9 percent of total spending on clothing in the three months to November 12, a 0.7 percentage-point decline from a year earlier, according to figures from market-research firm TNS Worldpanel. Supermarkets such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s Asda increased their share by 0.5 percentage point to 6.6 percent.

The British Retail Consortium said overall same-store sales in November gained 0.5 percent.

Debenhams, citing the mild weather, last week said sales at stores open at least a year fell 4.7 percent in the 14 weeks through December 10.

Holiday sales are “running about one week behind last year,” chief executive officer Rob Templeman said at the company’s annual general meeting on December 12.