John Lewis has strong Easter with sales up 20.9%
John Lewis said it enjoyed strong trade last week as sales surged by 20.9% year-on-year.
Although trading figures were flattered by the earlier fall of Easter this year, the retailer said the week also compared favourably to Easter week last year with good progress made in all areas.
Sales were up by 17.8% in the shops with the biggest percentage increases coming from new format space in Chichester, Exeter and Ipswich and full-line stores in Leicester, Liverpool and Southampton.
Online sales climbed by 28.2%.
Looking at the directorates, fashion achieved the highest increase on last year with growth of 22.6%. Some of the best performing categories included menswear, sports and babywear.
The electricals and home technology directorate had its best performance of the year to date with sales rising by 22.4%. Buoyant sales in vision were driven by promotional activity, stock availability and in-store trials.
Meanwhile, home sales increased by 18.9% as the directorate benefited from strong trade in home accessories and gifts in the run-up to Easter.
Tim Harrison, director of store development at John Lewis, said: “The fall of Easter always requires a couple of weeks to assess our performance. We certainly did well last week and we now need to make the most of the remaining seasonal break. This requires us to be disciplined in our execution and maintain our commercial advantage.”
