John Lewis sales growth remains tough but promotions boost fashion

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Nov 12, 2019

The John Lewis department stores chain turned in a pretty poor performance in late October and early November as the previous year’s promotional pricing saw it unable to match the sales achieved in 2018. So has the situation improved?

On Tuesday, the company reported its weekly figures for the seven days to November 9 and it seems that sales are still in negative territory but the fall has slowed down and the Fashion department notched up an increase.

Parent company John Lewis Partnership said its total sales fell 1.3% to £234.47 million while the department stores chain saw its sales down 2.3%.

But it added that “customers enjoyed shopping promotions across lighting, fashion and beauty”.

Fashion department sales were up 2.4% and within that, Beauty, Wellbeing & Leisure sales were up 11.6% as it price-matched competitor promotions across these categories. That’s good news, although it still means that the company is having to introduce price cuts to generate sales.

Meanwhile, last week saw the launch of its 12 days of Christmas Dresses, which was its best performing category in Womenswear, with the Hush dress proving particularly popular with customers.

But Home department sales were down 3.1%, although lighting sales were up 21% as customers “prepared their homes for winter evenings and shopped promotions in this area”.