G8 and bomb blasts affect sales at John Lewis |
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Sun, 17 Jul 2005 08:05
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LONDON: Department store chain John Lewis became the first group to report that last week's bombings in London had affected its business. There was an 11.7 percent fall in sales in its stores as shoppers stayed away due to the bombings.
The sales at its Oxford Street store fell by a record 27.7 percent due to the direct result of the terror attacks. And this was not all; the sales at the Edinburgh store fell by 32.8 percent as protests at the G8 Summit affected the sales in an adverse manner. John Lewis released these figures in a weekly trading update yesterday.
Sales at the group's Peter Jones in Sloane Square (6.7 percent) and Brent Cross (13.1 percent) in north London also showed a slowdown. This sales trough was confirmed by Gareth Thomas, the director of retail operations at John Lewis, who said, "Every branch ended up below the line on Saturday as we faced what was the first Saturday of clearance last year (but the second this year) and what was a very tough week for the whole division eventually saw every branch down for the week in total."
The timing of the group's clearance sale has also been a factor in the general slowdown, but Charlie Mayfield, the Managing Director chose to play down the effect of this, "Comparisons with sales last year don't present an accurate picture as they are distorted by the timing of our clearance sale, which started 3 days earlier this year," he said. However, he did add that the store did not expect any lasting impact on sales due to the attacks.
Overall, 15 of the group's 26 outlets have shown a downturn in sales in the week following the London blasts. But John Lewis reported that its online sales were up by 77 percent as compared to last year, taking the total sales this week to an increase of 1.8 percent.
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