John Lewis fashion sales dip as weather stays warm

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Sep 18, 2018

John Lewis Partnership sales fell again in the latest week with a 2.2% drop down to £207.2 million. And the John Lewis & Partners department store chain fell an even worse 4.3% in the seven days up to last Saturday.

The company blamed the weather for the drop, saying that the warmer weather compared to the same period last year has had an impact on sales of cold weather products. While there were widespread problems in October last year due to mild weather, September had actually been fairly chilly and offered hope for the autumn season to get off to a strong start.

But this time around, the temperatures didn't play ball and that meant fashion sales fell by 0.8% year-on-year. However, at least women's accessories managed to rise 1.4% and sales in the beauty, wellbeing and leisure category were up 2.7%.

The company has had a long-term problem with its Home directory and once again it struggled in the last seven days. Sales were down by 6.6%, although the retailer’s contemporary own-brand House had another strong week with sales up 2.4% compared to the same period last year. Cooking products were also up 3%.

Electrical and Home Technology directory sales were down 5.4%, however new launches performed well and the firm saw strong demand for wearable technology.