John Lewis Christmas sales rise as online shines

Sales at the John Lewis Partnership rose 4.1% to £1.81bn during the festive trading period, helped by another of its heartwarming Christmas advertising campaigns.

In the six weeks to 2 January, like-for-like sales at John Lewis gained 5.1% over the previous year, with online sales up 21.4%, offsetting a 1.2% drop in store sales.

After Christmas, however, customers took to the shops again, pushing in-store sales up 16.2% in the last week.

Like-for-like sales at supermarket Waitrose, meanwhile, were down 1.4% in the period despite record trading days on the 23 and 24 December as customers left their Christmas shopping to the last minute.

John Lewis chairman Charlie Mayfield said: “This has been a strong Christmas trading period for the partnership despite the non-food market seeing significant shifts in trade patterns and the grocery market continuing to be challenging.

“Our performance reflects to a large extent the significant investment we have made in our distribution and IT capability. Despite the fact trade was even more concentrated across a number of very busy shopping days, our operations performed especially well.”