John Lewis fashion sales rise in latest week

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Jan 3, 2020

As we wait for the John Lewis Partnership’s seven-week Christmas trading report that’s due on January 9, the company has released details of its trading for the seven days up to December 31 and it managed a respectable performance at group level.

Sales rose 7% to £299.26 million for the company as a whole, helped by Waitrose supermarkets, but the John Lewis department stores chain saw its sales dropping 4.1%. 

That said, its Fashion department was the star performer with a 5.8% sales rise in the week. 

Overall, despite a busy few days in the run up to Christmas, a slower than usual start to Clearance promotions was behind the chain’s dip in sales for the period.

So why did Fashion do so well? It was helped by certain key categories that come under the Fashion department’s umbrella with last-minute Christmas shopping seeing sales of beauty up 36%, jewellery up 27% and women’s nightwear up 22%.  

However, the troubled Home department’s sales were down 5.3%, despite customers shopping for last minute stationery and gift food in the run up to Christmas. And Electrical and Home Technology sales were down 14.5% due to slower demand for Clearance promotions.

It all suggests that those seven-week figures on January 9 won’t be as impressive as we’ve become used to from John Lewis in previous years.