Housewares Business-to-business magazine for housewares retailers and their suppliers
John Lewis reported that its first full week of Clearance (to January 3) got off to ‘a bumper start’, with sales up 9.6% on last year. Online sales were up 17% year-on-year with Click & Collect up 37% ahead of last year.
The department store group’s director of retail services Barry Matheson said: “Customers took advantage of the longer Christmas holiday to go shopping. There was a robust performance from shops which benefited from the additional weekday before the New Year holiday. New format shops were very much to the fore in terms of percentage growth, while Welwyn delivered the stand-out performance among the full-line shops.”
Home products achieved particularly good results in the Clearance sales, with growth of 9.5% year-on-year and record levels of trade from reduced and Special Buy products. Highlights included textiles and carpets (up 11%), cooking & dining (up 10%) and furniture (up 9%). EHT [Electrical & Home Technology] found the going tougher overall with sales -0.8% versus last year but within the directorate, small electricals were up 13%.
