Despite John Lewis’ profit decline, the brand still reported ‘healthy trading’. The British high street department store retailer reported that profit fell from £341.6m to £304.1m in the financial year ended January 30, 2016. This decline has been reported to have been due to higher pension charges arising and lower property profits. Excluding this, profit was up 9%; fashion was up 6.2%, menswear up 8.8% and womenswear up 6.5%.
John Lewis has seen the shift in consumer shopping habits affect their sales, as online sales increased 17%, whilst sales in shops fell 1%. The combination of Waitrose with John Lewis has also had a positive effect on the company’s sales. Click & collect accounted for over half of all johnlewis.com deliveries, with 70% of them collected in Waitrose.
