John Lewis blames warm weather

JOHN Lewis experienced another tough trading week as "unseasonably sunny" weather pushed department store sales downwards by 8.3 per cent to £48.7 million in the week to last Saturday.

Figures out yesterday showed that the firm's Scottish stores performed broadly in line with the rest of the group, reporting slumps of 5 per cent, 8.1 per cent and 12.3 per cent in the Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow branches respectively.

London's Oxford Street store was the only one to increase sales, while Waitrose – the supermarket arm of the John Lewis Partnership – also struggled as weekly sales fell 0.7 per cent to £73.6m.