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Neither the battle to bring the Ashes home nor the dodgy weather could keep Britons from shopping, according to sales figures today from High Street bellwether John Lewis.
The onset of the school holidays led to a 13% boost to sales in the toys and nursery department while golf's Open as well as the Ashes inspired a 10% rise in sports sales for the week to 18 July.
Total sales for the period were £52.6 million, an increase of 5.3% on the same week last year, although that was helped by a “one-off correction to first-half sales of fitted kitchens”. Without it, the uplift would have been 2.9%.
With the capital continuing to draw tourists cashing in on the value of the pound, Peter Jones in Sloane Square saw sales rise 10.7%, and the Brent Cross branch saw an extra 2.9% rattling through its tills.
Sister chain Waitrose saw total food sales up 11.7%, and said the 13 stores acquired from Somerfield were “contributing strongly”.
Meanwhile, figures from the Office for National Statistics showed a 1.2% increase in High Street sales in June, four times the amount City economists had predicted. Shoe and clothing retailers enjoyed an extra bounce, up 4.7% in their first increase in sales in three months.
But retailers have had to offer deep discounts to encourage sales. The ONS figures also showed that prices in June were 0.2% lower than last year — their first annual drop since January.
