John Lewis Christmas barometer

Tuesday 16 December 2014

This week's big story: Delivering Christmas

This is the time of year when all aspects of retailers' operations are put to the test and at John Lewis, we have stood up to the challenge. Customers continue to embrace the advantages of omnichannel, with Click & Collect orders up 32%, and sales assisted by Partners in shops, either on tablets or kiosks, up 31%.

Weekly trading update

This week has seen strong sales at £150.7m, +0.6% on last year. With our Christmas trading period* overall at +11% year-on-year, we are in good shape. Online sales this week were up 10% year-on-year. Total week-on-week sales were down -5.8%.

It is clear that the emerging story of this Christmas is how the changing shopping habits of British consumers are impacting retailers' delivery operations, with the demand from Black Friday resulting in an unprecedented peak in customer orders.

At John Lewis, our systems, processes and Partners have stood up to this test, and customers can shop with confidence across our delivery options. Customers continue to embrace the advantages of omnichannel, with Click & Collect orders up 32%, and sales assisted by Partners in shops, either on tablets or kiosks, up 31%.

Successfully reacting and responding to fluctuations in this season's shopping patterns has been critical in ensuring we can deliver Christmas to our customers across all our shopping channels.

In our product sales, the stand-out result of the week was from our fashion directorate, +5.2% signalling Christmas has come early for fashionistas with womenswear by own-brand label Kin up 31% and childrenswear +14%.  Premium beauty +8% drove a similarly strong performance with Jo Malone and MAC selling particularly well.

Following the trend we saw last year, shoppers are clearly leaving their gift buying to the last minute, with home sales level on the week at +0.1%. EHT sales peaked on Black Friday and this is reflective of this week's figure for EHT at -4.0%.

Andrew Murphy, retail director at John Lewis, said: 'This is the time of year when all aspects of retailers' operations are put to the test, and I'm very proud of how John Lewis Partners in our shops, distribution network and contact centres, have risen to the challenge and continued to deliver fantastic levels of service at their busiest time of year.

'It's been a solid week of trade, and our results through the whole pre-Christmas period are encouraging. With fewer than 10 days to go until Christmas, it's still all to play for.'

  • +0.6% year on year increase
  • -5.8% week on week decrease
  • £150.7m sterling total
  • 10% year on year increase johnlewis.com


What Britain's buying this week

  • +10% Women's fragrance
  • +31% Kin womenswear
  • +71% Baby hats and mitts

Notes to editors

John Lewis - John Lewis operates 43 John Lewis shops across the UK (31 department stores, ten John Lewis at home and shops at St Pancras International and Heathrow Terminal 2) as well as johnlewis.com. It is part of the John Lewis Partnership, the UK's largest example of worker co-ownership where all 30,000 staff are Partners in the business. John Lewis, 'Multichannel Retailer of the Year 2014'¹ , 'Best Overall Retailer'² and 'Best Retailer 2014'³, typically stocks more than 350,000 separate lines in its department stores across fashion, home and technology. Johnlewis.com stocks over 280,000 products, and is consistently ranked one of the top online shopping destinations in the UK. John Lewis Insurance offers a range of comprehensive insurance products - home, car, wedding and event, travel and pet insurance and life cover - delivering the values of expertise, trust and customer service expected from the John Lewis brand.

¹ Oracle Retail Week Awards 2014
² Verdict Consumer Satisfaction Awards 2014
³ Which? Awards 2014.


Enquiries

For further information please contact:

Email: johnlewis@brands2life.com
Telephone: 0207 592 1200