John Lewis weekly sales up 17.3%
John Lewis enjoyed a further period of strong trade last week as the final week of its clearance sale and the inclement weather drove its customers to buy online and from its stores.
Electricals and home technology saw a sales uplift of 37% on the same week last year with the large electricals department posting its best sales of the trading half. The retailer said its customers favoured higher priced products in the week with blenders and coffee machines selling particularly well alongside regular bestsellers the iPad and Kindle.
The home directorate achieved an 8.9% increase on last year due to a sales mix of Olympic related merchandise and core products such as bath and bed linen. The gloomy weather lifted lighting sales 23% on last year while the new Home Comforts range in Cooking and Dining performed strongly, achieving the biggest reaction to a new launch.
Fashion delivered 12.3% year-on-year growth with sales of sportswear up 39%, driven by sales of London 2012 merchandise.
Sales online at johnlewis.com accounted for a quarter of trade with sales up 50.6% on the same week last year. Online sales of womenswear saw the largest ever year-on-year growth while nursery had its biggest ever spring/summer week in total.
The best performing store was Croydon where sales were up 28.4%.
Dino Rocos, operations director at John Lewis, said that London 2012 merchandise was continuing to be a key footfall driver with sales up 16% in the week.
