John Lewis sales dip 1.4% last week
John Lewis saw its sales drop by 1.4% year-on-year in the week to 27 December as it continued to experience shifting patterns in customer shopping.
With online sales down by 4%, customers turned to the stores for the final few days of Christmas shopping with sales particularly strong at the Oxford Street, Exeter and Stratford City shops.
However, it was a record breaking week for click & collect with the number of parcels sent into John Lewis and Waitrose shops rising by 30% on the same time last year. To meet customer demand, John Lewis extended its order cut-off until 8pm on 23 December for collection on Christmas Eve.
Fashion sales rose by 8.1% as trade benefited from a mixture of colder weather, gifting and price matching which helped sales of women’s accessories and beauty to climb by 25%.
Never Miss a Retail Update!Home sales also performed well, edging up 3%, as strong sales of gift food helped home accessories and gift sales to increase by 27% on last year. Sales of cooking and dining products were also buoyant, rising by 9%.
Meanwhile, sales in the electricals and home technology directorate fell by 14.7%.
The retailer said its clearance sale got off to a flying start online on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day orders were up 19% with sales peaking at 9pm and a high volume of traffic coming from mobile devices.
Mark Lewis, online director at John Lewis, said: “The fall of the calendar is such that we would expect to see some of this clearance demand fall into next week’s numbers, so we will need to review progress over a longer time-frame, however early indications are that our bargains in the key areas of furniture and textiles are being warmly received by customers.”
