Fashion falters at John Lewis as clearance sale nears its end

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Jan 17, 2017

John Lewis sales may have risen 3.7% to £89.11m in the seven days to January 14 but the Fashion directory didn’t fare so well as its sales dipped 0.1%, despite it being cold in the UK during the last week of the clearance sale when shoppers might have been expected to snap up late winter season bargains.

But while Fashion overall was slow, Beauty, Wellbeing and Leisure all performed the strongest within the category with sales up 5.6%.

There was good news too from the Home directory where sales were up 3.8% year-on-year after some sluggish weeks, again driven by the clearance sale. In particular, sales of the retailer’s 'special buy' products were significantly up, as were sales of home accessories, gifts and furniture.

But it was Electrical and Home Technology that was John Lewis’s strongest business as a 6.9% rises reflected a 28.4% surge in audio and smart home products were up 28.4%. Headphones were particularly popular.