John Lewis fashion team on the right track as latest weekly sales soar

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Jun 6, 2017

John Lewis’s fashion buyers must have been celebrating in the past few days as its latest week - the seven days to June 3 - saw the department’s sales soaring.

Not that that every category at the department store chain was buoyant. Total sales rose only 2% to £83.79m despite the Fashion directory (which also includes beauty) soaring 12.5%.

Why was fashion so strong? The retailer staged a price-match promotion that helped push women’s shoe sales up an impressive 31.5% and beauty up 13.1%. But summer clothing sales topped both of those as a week of warm weather sent sales up by 40%.

Clearly, there must have been some areas of the business that went down. This time it was Home, returning to the sluggish performance it has seen for much of this year with a 1.8% dip. However, outdoor living sales rose 16% with outdoor furniture up 10.4% and barbecues surging 43%.

Electricals were weak too, falling 5%, although small electrical enjoyed a 2.6% rise as the warm weather meant John Lewis sold more fans.