John Lewis feels the chill as snow keeps customers away

With the capital at a standstill because of the weather, Oxford Street's takings fell 21.3% while Peter Jones's were 14.1% lower, Kingston's declined by 25.5% and Bluewater's were off 25.2% on a year earlier.

Overall, the department store chain said revenue had dropped by 17.1% across the UK in the first week of February to just £37.12 million.

Its worst-performing shop was in Milton Keynes, where takings crashed by 39.4%.

"The pattern of trade up and down the country matched the snowfall," John Lewis's head of selling development Barry Matheson said. "London branches in the South-East were the most badly affected at the beginning of the week and later it was the turn of the South-West, the Midlands and parts of Scotland."

The struggle at John Lewis - which is considered to be a barometer of trading on the High Street - illustrates the nightmare that the weather posed for the nation's shopkeepers.

Although John Lewis said trade had picked up by the weekend, it was not enough to compensate for the drop in business seen earlier in the week.

Sales of homeware were hardest hit, falling by a fifth, but its fashion lines were also struggling, declining by 16.8%.

But the group said that its customers had been snapping up cold weather gear such as gloves, scarves and duvets, and that childrenswear had performed strongly.

Customers may not have ventured to John Lewis's stores, but they were still logging on, with sales on its website rising by 7.9%.

Meanwhile, the snow was good news for Waitrose. Sales at the partnership's supermarket chain jumped by 3.6% to £78.97 million.

This helped offset John Lewis's dire performance, meaning that sales across the entire group were only 4% lower than last year at £116.09 million.