Cold weather clothing and beauty are key for John Lewis in latest week

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Dec 12, 2017

We may be deep into the Christmas shopping season but John Lewis is struggling to generate notable sales growth with its latest weekly results showing an overall sales rise of just 0.1% to £151.9 million in the seven days to December 9.

Fashion was sluggish too with sales up only 0.5% in the period. But there was some good news within that with the retailer saying that customers reacted to the sharply falling temperatures. That helped to drive cold weather gear sales up 5% on last year and John Lewis hit a new record for cashmere in Womenswear, up 24%.

The Beauty, Wellbeing and Leisure category achieved a rise of only 3.6%, having done much better in many other weeks this year. That said, Beauty was the standout performer here with a healthier rise of 7.8%.

But Home sales were down 1.4% on last year, although Cookshop saw sales increasing 9% due to promotions and ‘filled bedlinen’ continued to perform well, with 13.5 tog duvets up 9.2%.  

Electricals and Home Technology was up 1.4% on last year and Mobile had a strong week, up 47% on last year, as the iPhone 10 continued to perform well. Coffee machines were also in demand, rising 40% on this week last year.