Weather lifts John Lewis sales

The employee-owned business said department store sales increased 3.7 per cent to £59.9m in the week to July 16 and were up 2.1 per cent excluding VAT sales tax. Sales at its Sheffield store were down four per cent.

“Continued mixed weather helped drive a solid final week for clearance,” said the firm, which has been outperforming rivals for over a year.

“The total clearance period has been a success story with customers taking advantage of more special buys; even excluding the additional two days at the start, sales have been comfortably up on last year,” it added.

British consumers are grappling with rising prices, subdued wages growth, a lack of credit, job insecurity, a stagnant housing market, government austerity measures and fears of interest rate rises.

“It will be interesting to see how John Lewis’ sales perform now that its clearance sale is coming to an end. The suspicion is that sales will soften in the face of ongoing consumer pressures and caution,” said IHS Global Insight chief economist Howard Archer.

John Lewis also owns the Waitrose supermarket chain. Here, week to July 16 sales increased 9.8 per cent to £101.2m.

Separately, John Lewis said it would step up the pace of its expansion by opening at least 10 new “flexible format” department stores.