Housewares Business-to-business magazine for housewares retailers and their suppliers
Sales at John Lewis stepped up 1.5% year-on-year last week (to November 14) and 15.8% up on the previous week to deliver the department store group’s first £100 million sales week of the season.
John Lewis commercial director Paula Nickolds said: “There are clear signs that this will be a truly omnichannel Christmas, with two-thirds of customers now visiting both a shop and johnlewis.com to make a purchase. The process was made easier by this week’s launch of our new iPad app with the ‘Find Similar’ feature, which quickly locates fashion products with similar colours, shapes and patterns on our website.”
She added: “We also opened our 46th shop – John Lewis ‘at home’ Basingstoke – which is trading well. ‘The Man on The Moon’, our Christmas advert, continues to attract attention and, with 22 million views in the first week, is proving even more popular than ‘Monty the Penguin’: our 2014 Christmas campaign.”
Home sales increased by 2.8% as customers prepared their houses to receive guests. Carpets were up 14.9%, blinds up 22.3% and curtains up 10.2% with John Lewis’ made-to-measure seven-day service proving especially popular. It was also a record week for lighting – up 39% on last year – which Paula attributes to “the shorter days, plus the breadth and popularity of our range”.
EHT (Electricals & Home Technology) also performed well at 1.6% up, benefiting from the launch of both the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 and iPad Pro.
Paula concluded: “The countdown to Christmas has begun. Customers are now buying gifts and products to prepare their homes for the season ahead. We have sourced some fantastic ranges, our shops are stocked and Partners [staff] are ready to help everyone have a great Christmas.”
