John Lewis has unveiled double digit online growth in the first half of its financial year.
Its weekly sales figures showed that while the value of transactions on Johnlewis.com rose by 24.2% in the week to July 27, in the six months to the same date online revenue grew by 17.2%. Total sales grew by 13% in the week and 6.6% in the six month period. That’s a contrast with the same period in the previous year, when sales grew by 20.4%.
Commenting on the week’s trading, John Lewis operations director Dino Rocos said: “With the heat of recent weeks easing, customers found an increased appetite to visit our stores and online proposition with sales closing 13% ahead of last year.”
He said that online, strong growth at 24.7% was reflected across all the directorates. Click & collect had continued to grow, with collections up 51% on last year.
Across categories, the strongest turnaround was in the home department where sales grew by 6.9%. The best overall growth was in electricals, with sales up by 24%.
Meanwhile, total sales at Waitrose grew by 8.7% in the 26 weeks to July 27, or 11% excluding petrol, and by 1.9% in the week to July 27.
Managing director Mark Price said divisional sales in the first half had exceeded £3bn for the first time. He added: “We have achieved sales growth that has been significantly and consistently ahead of the market – indeed, we have now outperformed the market for more than four years in a row, according to Kantar data.”
He added: “We faced particularly tough comparatives with the equivalent week last year when we had the first sustained period of hot weather of the summer and the excitement for the Olympics had started to build.”
