Online sales were up 45% in the week to January 3, John Lewis has reported. Sales overall were also up a trend-busting 27%. “John Lewis Direct produced its fourth highest week ever and smashed last year’s Clearance performance into the bargain,” says the partnership’s latest trading statement.
House of Fraser has reported an online sales increase of 150% in the five weeks to 3 January compared to the year before — although, at that time, the retailer’s transactional site had only been open for a few months. A total of 1.7 million new visitors were attracted to the site over the Christmas period, NMA reports.
Whilst it would be hard to miss the fact that Marks & Spencer is suffering from the downturn in consumer spending, with like-for-like sales down 7.1% and a raft of store closures and redundancies on the way, online sales actually increased 29% for the thirteen weeks to 27 December.” Online performed strongly in Q3 with record traffic driving sales up 29%; stock clearance was especially fast,” says chairman Stuart Rose.
At Ocado, sales were up 97% this Christmas week compared to last year and sales up 25% in the four weeks to January 3.
Sainsbury’s says it saw online sales growth of 27% for the last quarter of 2008, amidst overall like-for-like sales growth of 4.5% excluding fuel. “Our online home delivery service delivered a record number of orders in the week before Christmas contributing to growth of 27 per cent for the full quarter,” says chief executive Justin King.
Thorntons has reported web sales up 24.7%, although total sales are down 5.4%. Next has also reported increases in online sales this week, although not such strong growth as the companies mentioned above. Next’s like-for-like store sales are down 7%, but sales in the Next Directory catalogue and ecommerce division are up 1.1% over last year.
