Overall sales in the six weeks to 2 January rose by more than 4 per cent from the same season previous year to £1.81bn, The Guardian notes.
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But he warned that the “pressure” on trading will continue through next year and said the “full impact” of the Brexit vote “is yet to become clear”.
“These are not as a effect of the European Union referendum result, which has had little quantifiable impact on sales so far”. It also incurred an exceptional charge of £25m for the write-down of property assets no longer meant to be developed.
The company has decided not to expand as it planned in terms of store numbers.
Profit before tax dropped by 14.7% to £81.9m against improved sales of £5.27bn (up 3.1%).
“Instead there are far reaching changes taking place in society, in retail and in the workplace that have much greater implications”, he said.
British clothing retailer Next reported a 1.5 percent fall in first half profit on Thursday and said trading since July had been challenging and volatile.
Retailers are also having to endure price wars driven by discounters including Aldi and Lidl, as well as competition from Amazon which is muscling in on the online groceries market.
However anyone looking to go shopping at John Lewis in the very near future could be disappointed, as bosses have admitted an opening date is a long way off.
The partnership said it is committed to better salaries for its staff, flagging that it intends to ensure pay remains “well above” the national living wage. This was blamed not only on the impact of the market conditions but also on increases in staff pay, investment in IT and higher supply chain costs following the transition to its new National Distribution Centre operation. Online sales rose by 4.3% in a half-year that saw the supermarket move to grow its exports.
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The company, which is owned by its employees- known as partners, said it was taking a £25m writedown relating to sites it had acquired to build seven Waitrose supermarkets that it no longer plans to open.
