Housewares Business-to-business magazine for housewares retailers and their suppliers
Total sales for John Lewis & Partners were down 3.2% last week (to Saturday February 9) on the same week last year.
The department store group’s fashion buying director Christine Kasoulis said: “Home sales were down 4.0%. The ‘Marie Kondo’ effect continues to increase sales of storage products which were up 27%.”
[Following the January debut of Japanese organising consultant and author Marie Kondo’s Netflix series ‘Tidy Up’, the retailer reported record sales of storage and organisation products, with storage boxes soaring by 47%, and baskets climbing 24% on last year.]Christine continued: “Overall sales of gift products were up 10.8% with Gift Food sales up 21% as customers prepared for Valentine’s Day.
“Electrical and Home Technology sales were down 7.8% due to annualising a strong week last year. Communications technology products were up 2.5% driven by strong sales of tablets.
“Fashion sales were up 3.0%. We saw strong demand for new season collections in Women’s Accessories and Menswear where sales increased by 11.4% and 8.9% respectively. Price-matching a competitor promotion on beauty products helped increase sales in Beauty, Wellbeing and Leisure by 1.7% on last year.”
