What: A strong Christmas season for the UK retailer.

Why is it important: John Lewis’ omnichannel strategy proved resilient during lockdowns, leading to a better performance than the competition during Christmas, and the anticipation of a better financial year than previously announced.

John Lewis is a leading department store when it comes to e-commerce. Pre-pandemic, it was already achieving GBP 2 of every GBP 5P of sales through e-commerce, and during the pandemic, GBP 7 out of each GBP 10 was performed online. This sales structure (noting that click and collect is not anymore available at department stores, to limit costs) allowed John Lewis to raise its expectation for the full financial year results, to be announced in March.

The Christmas performance also allowed the retailer to repay in advance a loan of GBP 300 million, which adds up to a strategic savings plan that was already made concrete by the closure of 8 department stores in 2020 and reduction of HQ expenses by GBP 300 million (amounting to 3,000 redundancies).

John Lewis repays £300m Covid funding and raises FY guidance