John Lewis singing in the rain

Other retailers may be complaining about the miserable British weather last week but the employee-owned John Lewis Partnership has been singing in the rain.

Overall revenues in the week to May 19th were up 11.6% year-on-year at £59.7m, led by strong demand for electrical and home technology products, where the television switch-over to digital helped drive a 37% surge in sales.

Those annoying people who get all their shopping done before the end of November have apparently been at it again, this time with preparations for the forthcoming Queen's jubilee celebrations, as sales of bunting, bowler hats and tea towels lifted John Lewis's home-ware sales by almost 5%.

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One area where the rainfall has affected sales growth is in fashion, where John Lewis's sales were just 2% higher than a year earlier, as shoppers dither over whether galoshes or sandals are this summer's must-have fashion items.

In a week in which retail bellwether Marks & Spencer was forced to slash its sales forecasts, John Lewis appears to be going from strength to strength, as it has reported double-digit percentage gains in sales every week since the end of March.

Retail operations director Simon Russell was exercising typical British understatement as he described it as another solid week for the chain, which also includes Waitrose supermarkets.

Waitrose's weekly sales were up 6.6% year-on-year, suggesting that Tesco and Sainsbury's promotional blitz is not having much effect on Waitrose's loyal customers.

Waitrose currently has a price-match scheme in which is pledges to match the price on 7,000 branded items stocked by Tesco, the market leader by some distance in the supermarket sector, although items on special offer are excluded from the scheme, a get-out clause that was scornfully criticised by Sainsbury Chief Executive, Justin King.

Sainsbury and Waitrose have traditionally been regarded as chasing much the same sort of reasonably well-off shopper, hence King's scorn. Sainsbury has its own price-match scheme which compares prices with Tesco and Wal-Mart subsidiary Asda at the till, and issues money-off coupons to the value of any items which proved more expensive at Sainsbury.

All of the supermarkets are also upping their online game, to the consternation of online-only grocer Ocado, which on Wednesday of this week said it saw year-on-year gross sales growth of around 13% for the 12 weeks ending May 13th.

The John Lewis Partnership saw its online sales shoot up 37.5% from the same week a year earlier.

JH