Snow freezes up John Lewis department store sales

John Lewis showed yesterday the extent of the damage wrought by recent heavy snowfall on British retailers, reporting a 17.1 per cent drop in weekly sales at its department stores compared with the same time last year.

The employee-owned group, viewed as a barometer of British retail spending, said stores in the south of the country were most affected by the heaviest snowfall for 20 years, with sales in Milton Keynes plunging 39.4 per cent in the week ended February 7.

"It dominated the news all week, brought London to a virtual standstill on Monday, and had a huge impact on our customers' appetite to shop. I am, of course, talking about the snow that affected large parts of the country throughout last week and makes any assessment of our sales very challenging," John Lewis said in a statement.

Many of Britain's retailers are struggling as shoppers curb spending in a deepening economic recession.

Earlier this week, the British Retail Consortium reported an unexpected rise in the value of underlying UK retail sales in January, but this was driven mainly by grocery sales and heavy discounting by non-food retailers and many analysts expect the downward trend to resume in the February report.

It was not all gloom at John Lewis.

Weekly sales at Waitrose, its upmarket grocery chain, were up 3.6 per cent on the year, trimming the decline for the whole group to four per cent.