Next is expected to report growth in full-price sales on Wednesday, as investors look for the retailer to repeat its bumper second-quarter performance.
Full-price sales growth will slow to 1.1% in the third quarter, according to analysts at Jefferies.
This follows a second quarter in which full-price sales were up 2.8%, prompting Next to upgrade its profit expectations for the full year.
Declining sales on the high street will continue to be offset by the directory division, which includes online and catalogue shopping.
Jefferies estimates that like-for-like sales in shops will drop by 7.8%, during the period, but directory will post a resilient 10.3% gain.
George Salmon, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "Next's been one of the frontrunners for online shopping, and sales rose almost 17% in the first half of the year. The web is a crowded marketplace these days though, so, while it's good to see strides being made, it's important Next maintains strong growth.
"Investors will have fingers on the pulse of physical stores too. Like-for-like figures haven't been showing many signs of life lately, but the group's been offsetting this by opening new sales space. Given the high street climate, we'll be keeping a close eye on progress."
Shares in Next jumped to 5,518p in September following the announcement of its profit upgrade, but the price has since dipped to trade at 5,156p on Friday.
Next expects to report £727 million in pre-tax profit for the year, but will need to perform well during the critical holiday trading season.
Graham Spooner, investment research analyst at The Share Centre, said: "This update comes as the company approaches Black Friday and the crucial Christmas and New Year trading period, so any comments about the strategy relating to discounting will be of interest."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here