Half-term and cold weather drives John Lewis sales up 17%

Sales at department store John Lewis rocketed 17.2% to £63.3m in the week to February 23, as half-term and cold weather helped to boost performance.

Across the first four weeks of the new financial year, sales were up by “an impressive” 16.8%.

All stores reported an uplift last week, with Nottingham rising 27%, Liverpool 25% and Trafford 26%.

John Lewis relaunched its website in the week, and managed a 20% sales uplift “despite the transition”.

Simon Russell, director, retail operations development, at John Lewis said the relaunch is a “significant milestone and a result of many months of planning and hard work by the IT and online selling teams”.

Electricals again drove overall sales, soaring 33% on last year. Vacuum cleaners, heating and tablets were the standout areas.

Home sales were up 10%, with furniture, accessories and textiles all up double-digit. Seasonal lines were “particularly strong”, with sales of Mother’s Day gifts increasing 87% and Easter ranges rising 20%.

Fashion sales also increased by 10% as the cold weather drove demand in knitwear, while new-season stock including own-brands John Lewis & Co and Kin were “strong” in menswear.

Half-term “stimulated interest in childrenswear”.

Russell added: “Mother’s Day and Easter are the key season’s focus for the next few weeks. We have some great products and are well set to continue our good start to 2013.”

Waitrose, sister retailer of John Lewis, enjoyed a 9.4% sales rise (excluding petrol) to £110.5m, with goods for cooked breakfasts and potatoes for “warming dinners” performing well in the cold weather.

Soup was among the top-performing categories, and the upmarket grocer sold 25% more pairs of tights and 38% more pairs of socks.

However, spring was also in the air last week, as sales of British daffodils increased 50%.

Online sales “continued to be strong”, rising 42%. The retailer will open its first drive-through in Cheltenham in March, followed by services in branches in Southend, Salisbury, Wolverhampton and Lincoln. Shoppers will be able to order groceries online at Waitrose.com and pick them up from a collection area in the branch car park in designated time slots.

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Half-term and cold weather drives John Lewis sales up 17%

Sales at department store John Lewis rocketed 17.2% to £63.3m in the week to February 23, as half-term and cold weather helped to boost performance.

Across the first four weeks of the new financial year, sales were up by “an impressive” 16.8%.

All stores reported an uplift last week, with Nottingham rising 27%, Liverpool 25% and Trafford 26%.

John Lewis relaunched its website in the week, and managed a 20% sales uplift “despite the transition”.

Simon Russell, director, retail operations development, at John Lewis said the relaunch is a “significant milestone and a result of many months of planning and hard work by the IT and online selling teams”.

Electricals again drove overall sales, soaring 33% on last year. Vacuum cleaners, heating and tablets were the standout areas.

Home sales were up 10%, with furniture, accessories and textiles all up double-digit. Seasonal lines were “particularly strong”, with sales of Mother’s Day gifts increasing 87% and Easter ranges rising 20%.

Fashion sales also increased by 10% as the cold weather drove demand in knitwear, while new-season stock including own-brands John Lewis & Co and Kin were “strong” in menswear.

Half-term “stimulated interest in childrenswear”.

Russell added: “Mother’s Day and Easter are the key season’s focus for the next few weeks. We have some great products and are well set to continue our good start to 2013.”

Waitrose, sister retailer of John Lewis, enjoyed a 9.4% sales rise (excluding petrol) to £110.5m, with goods for cooked breakfasts and potatoes for “warming dinners” performing well in the cold weather.

Soup was among the top-performing categories, and the upmarket grocer sold 25% more pairs of tights and 38% more pairs of socks.

However, spring was also in the air last week, as sales of British daffodils increased 50%.

Online sales “continued to be strong”, rising 42%. The retailer will open its first drive-through in Cheltenham in March, followed by services in branches in Southend, Salisbury, Wolverhampton and Lincoln. Shoppers will be able to order groceries online at Waitrose.com and pick them up from a collection area in the branch car park in designated time slots.

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Netherlands' DJ Afrojack Learns Why You 'Don't Drive A Ferrari In Shit Weather' (UPDATED)

This is Nick van de Wall. He is a DJ and a music producer from the Netherlands. He goes by the name of Afrojack. This is his crashed Ferrari 458 Italia. And this is the life lesson he learned today.

Afrojack just crashed his Ferrari under circumstances which have yet to be determined. But on his Lockerz page, he posted a picture of the wrecked supercar with the message "ok that sucks, good thing were all ok!!!! lesson in life: dont drive a ferrari in shit weather!"

That, or save up your money and buy a Ferrari FF instead. It's kind of ugly, but it can handle bad weather. 

Pictured below: the 458 in better days. Maybe he'll replace with something that does better in the rain. 

UPDATE: As some of you guys (and TMZ) have pointed out, Afrojack totaled the Ferrari THE SAME DAY HE GOT IT. As in, within an hour or so of getting it, he crashed it. There are no words. 

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Will the winter weather bring woe to classic car owners?

NOBODY else at The Champion has written it yet so I thought I'd get the ball rolling - it's only 11 weeks ‘til Christmas!

Don't worry, I'm not going to ask you whether you think the Christmas rush arrives too early these days but I've put to readers of tomorrow's Champion an entirely different problem, which hits lots of car nuts at roughly the same time every year. ‘Tis the season to be asking.

Where do you stash your pride and joy over the winter?

If you own, say, a Honda Jazz you're probably going to be completely unmoved by the question, in which case you're more than welcome to flick forward a few pages and check out this week's sports news. Modern cars are built to cope with frost and ice and grit and all those other unbearably cold and corrosive things commonly found during winter, in which case you're not going to worry about leaving one on your driveway for the duration. Classic cars, though, are an entirely different rusty kettle of fish.

Leave anything made, say, by British Leyland out in the open for more than six months and it'll start rotting in places you wouldn't have thought rot was possible (and I know this from the joys of Mini ownership). If you own a car made before, ooh, the Eighties and don't want it to dissolve into an iron oxide heap before next spring, you'll be wanting somewhere warm and dry to keep it.

Luckily, I have a garage for my MG but there's plenty of people I know who don't or simply have too many old cars for the one lock up they own, which is where the headache begins. There are garages you can rent but they're usually one-off lock-ups, meaning it's difficult to keep the old cars you've accumulated in one, cheap and affordable space.

Nor am I calling for the sort of specialist storage sites you find advertised in the back of Classic and Sports Car, which are used largely by supercar owners who keep them wrapped in cotton wool for eye-wateringly expensive months at a time. If you own an old Ferrari this is all fine and dandy, but most of the enthusiasts I know don't and can't afford it.

No, what we need is somewhere that's basic and cheap but dry and secure, where you can store your classic car and know that it isn't rotting away in all weathers.

Who's with me?

Do you agree? Share your thoughts by sending an email to david.simister@hotmail.co.uk or call 07581 343476.