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January 4th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda - Bucks trend of gloom on the High Street that saw Next sales fall 2.7%
By
Charles Walford
Last updated at 5:28 PM on 4th January 2012
Its 6million festive ad was dubbed ‘one of the greatest ever’ and became a social media sensation
And it seems the popularity of the 90-second clip has translated into sales success for John Lewis.
The department store group enjoyed an ‘outstanding’ festive period, smashing its December sales record.
The ad that shows a boy impatiently waiting for Christmas to give a present to his parents ends with the line ‘for gifts you can’t wait to give’ and certainly seems to have struck a chord with the British public.
Strong sales of clothes and electrical items helped the department store take more than £500million in the festive build-up.
Scroll down to watch the ad again
The John Lewis advert cost £6million to make – but helped bring in almost £600million in pre-Christmas sales
The retail bellwether, which operates 35 stores, said sales were up 9.3 per cent to £596million in the five weeks to December 31, up 9.3 per cent on last year and 6.2 per cent higher on a directly comparable basis.
Online revenues rose 28 per cent,
boosted by a near doubling in the number of shoppers using its click and
collect service, while like-for-like sales, which exclude new store
openings, were up 6 per cent.
The
ad, which features a seven-year-old boy impatiently counting down the
days until he can give his parents their present on Christmas morning,
became a social media sensation after its November launch.
Retail
experts said the fantastic success of the ad, called The Long Wait,
contributed to John Lewis’s remarkable sales figures which dramatically
bucked the depressed trend elsewhere on the High Street.
In contrast Next’s refusal to follow the high street trend of huge pre-Christmas discounts led to a drop in sales.
The
fashion chain admitted to a ‘disappointing’ sales performance today for
high street sales between August and Christmas Eve, triggering a slump
in its share price.
Strong sales of clothes and electrical items helped department store John Lewis take more than £500million
Figures
showed that sales at Next were down 2.7 per cent on a year earlier,
despite the previous year’s figures being hit by cold weather.
But the group, which operates 520 stores, was cheered by the strength of internet trading, with a 16.9 per cent rise in its online and catalogue Directory business.
Overall sales for the Next brand were 3.1 per cent higher, in line with its guidance in November.
Although the final week before
Christmas was strong, overall sales in November and December were
‘disappointing’, as it refused to discount stock and maintained its
profit margins.
But more people left their shopping until after Christmas when Next put on a high profile sale, which it said ‘went well’.
Next,
which has been one of the best-performing stocks in the FTSE 100 Index
over the past year, saw shares slump 5 per cent. Rival Marks
Spencer fell 2 per cent.
The group narrowed its full-year
profits guidance to £7million either side of £565 million, compared to
£551million a year earlier.
However, it said profits next year would only show a slight improvement amid challenging conditions for consumers.
Next up: Fashion chain Next is the first of a clutch of big name retailers to update the market on their Christmas performances
John Lewis’s strongest sellers included iPads and Kindles, cashmere sweaters and bedding and linen.
The period saw it smash its previous weekly sales record, when it took £133.1 million in the seven days to December 17.
However, it has seen a fall in sales
in the week after Christmas as it came up against strong comparisons
with the year before when people rushed to buy big ticket items ahead of
the hike in VAT to 20 per cent.
Managing director Andy Street said: ‘Sales during the four weeks to Christmas Eve were outstanding.’
John Lewis’s pre-Christmas sales were
also flattered by softer figures from last year when the Arctic weather
kept shoppers at home.
Perfumes proved a popular gift ahead
of Christmas and accounted for half of all beauty sales in one week. The
group said it sold enough Chanel No 5 and Coco Mademoiselle to fill
3,600 champagne glasses.
Next had enjoyed a strong year until the pre-Christmas slump
Other popular gifts included lingerie, speciality chocolate and Champagne.
Sales of toys were strong, with a storage unit shaped like a giant Lego
man’s head and Hexbug mini-robotic creatures among the favourites.
Baking gadgets and brightly coloured
kitchen utensils such as cookie cutters, measures and cupcake cases and
pudding bowls were also snapped up.
And sales of boys’ and girls’ hats, gloves and scarves and snowboots benefited from the recent cold snap.
Its post-Christmas sale has seen
strong demand for laptops, TVs, Apple MacBooks, Dyson vacuum cleaners,
iPod speakers and homewares such as mattresses and duvets.
Meanwhile, Matthew McEachran, an
analyst at Singer Capital Markets, said the weaker-than-expected
performance from Next may lead the City to downgrade its profits
forecasts by 3 per cent.
But Next had some good news for consumers as it confirmed that it does not expect to hike prices over the coming year.
The group last year openly passed on price rises, such as the soaring cost of cotton, to shoppers as it maintained its margins.
It predicted that the squeeze on consumers will ease this year, with inflation dropping close to average wage growth.
But it warned that the eurozone crisis and rising unemployment would continue to drag on confidence.
The group said its stock levels at Christmas were 10 per cent higher than a year ago, reflecting the weak festive trade.
But the strong post-Christmas sale,
which saw consumers queuing outside stores across the country after many
of its goods were reduced to half price or less, was expected to help
shift the stock.
It said: ‘A number of factors have
subdued sales in the final quarter and it is hard to judge to what
extent warm winter weather and higher levels of competitor discounting
masked the deeper, longer-lasting economic effects.’
As a result, it was cautious about
its performance over the coming year, but said it expected to generate
£200million surplus cash to return to shareholders.
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the secret of Waitrose and JL is they are honest and the staff genuinly will go a 1100 miles to help. iT ain;t that expensive either. .Wish the other stores would do the same
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the secret of Waitrose and JL is they are honest and the staff genuinly will go a 1100 miles to help. iT ain;t that expensive either. .Wish the other stores would do the same
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Surprised John Lewis sell many TVs , their prices are far higher than an internet company with first class in-house back up. A huge Philips TV was
£200 cheaper than JL with the same warranty.
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WOW, An overpriced CHAINSTORE manages to make more money over a balmy Christmas than over a frozen one.. Maybe the middle class aren’t feeling the pinch as much as others.. or maybe John Lewis had the right products at an acceptable price in a convenient location.. Either way good news for John Lewis and shareholders, bad news for it’s competitors.. 1/2 billion ain’t half bad..
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Of course J L are the best. Their staff are rewarded out of the profits so it’s in their interest to make sure the customer is always happy. On top of that they have such a huge number of High Street names available under their roof that it is possible to do the entire shopping in one store. My only complaint is the price of a cup of coffee and a scone, but I concede that I tend to live in the past regarding such prices and still expect to find leather shoes for 39/11.
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Bring back George Davies
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shhhhhhhhhhh, JL Partnership is the best kept secret don’t spread it about. Excellent Service from staff, Excellent well made products from ALL over the world including the chinese tat (only the best tat will do), Warranties and After service fabulous and second to none (Every electrical item in my home is from there). Some of my friends think I am such a snooty mare for shopping there, but what they fail to realise is the whole package that the JL Partnership brings. Can’t help but be very smug when I hear of people gripes at other places. Quality will ALWAYS shine through.(BTW there are no shareholders for this company – the staff are the Partners and thier bonus’ are performanced based) JLP I salute you.
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Glad to see one of the last retailers to resist the trend towards Boxing Day opening to have such a great December. Puts to bed the argument put forward by the industry that they ‘have’ to open on the day to prevent losing business. Well done John Lewis!
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Not surprised that Next aren’t doing too well. We went in to buy my Daughter’s Christmas present armed with picture and stock number. Staff tried to help but different people took us to different areas. No stock but system showing some. Maybe warehouse has them. No, they can’t find them. Try another store miles away and with expensive parking when Next staff can’t be bothered to phone and check if they have the not inexpensive item (even though they aren’t busy)? No way. Went to John Lewis.
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The reason John Lewis has done so well is simply because they have good old fashioned customer service. On the rare occasions I have had to call them my enquiries were all dealt with efficiently and with courtesy. I think most other chain stores can learn a lot from them.
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