Laura Ashley and John Lewis see sales slide
Major high street retailers Laura Ashley and John Lewis have both reported falls in sales over the past four months.
Home and womenswear retailer Laura Ashley said total sales fell 4.5 per cent in the four months to the end of May as it closed loss-making stores and refurbished others.
Like-for-like sales were down 1.3 per cent but it said the high street environment improved in the second half of the period – and remained better than its performance at the start of 2010, when sales were down by 4.2 per cent.
And it said its online sales had grown by 6.7 per cent in the 17-week period.
John Lewis, which operates both the department store chain and upmarket supermarket Waitrose, said its sales had fallen by 0.8 per cent year-on-year in the week to 28 May, and by three per cent excluding VAT.
The drop followed a spike in the previous week, where sales rose 5.3 per cent year-on-year, and returned to the overall May trend of muted sales, according to IHS Global Insight chief economist Howard Archer.
Sales at its department stores grew just 1.3 per cent in the four months to 28 May, while excluding VAT they fell by 0.6 per cent – substantially below the 9.9 per cent overall group growth rate in the six months to January.
“This suggests that consumers have generally become more circumspect in their spending again after splashing out a bit in April,” Archer said.
Laura Ashley closed 16 shops in the year to January 29 and another three since then, it said in its interim management statement.