John Lewis sales drop again despite higher fashion sales

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Feb 12, 2019

Sales of £200.89 million at John Lewis Partnership meant the company saw no uplift whatsoever in the seven days up to February 9. But while it at least managed to avoid a sales fall, that was largely because of higher turnover at its Waitrose supermarkets, while its John Lewis department stores headed into negative territory.

Its sales fell as much as 3.2%, which was bad news, albeit not for the Fashion department. As in so many other weeks, fashion sales were a strong point for the chain as the company “saw strong demand for new season collections in Women's Accessories and Menswear, where sales increased by 11.4% and 8.9% respectively.” 

And it said that price-matching a competitor promotion on beauty products helped increase sales in Beauty, Wellbeing and Leisure by 1.7% on last year, a slim increase but a rise nonetheless, even though price-matching may have undermined profit margins a little.

Home sales continued their downward trajectory, however, with a drop of 4%. But the company said the ‘Marie Kondo effect’ continued to increase sales of storage products, which were up 27%.  Overall, sales of gift products were up 10.8% with Gift Food sales rising 21% as customers prepared for Valentine’s Day.