LONDON (ShareCast) - John Lewis thinks a 3.7% drop in sales constitutes a "good week" seeing as most of us hung up our shopping bags and headed for the beach.
Sales dropped to £50.89m at its department stores business in the week
to 27 June, exposing Father's Day as the major force behind the previous week's 2.2% rise.
Home sales were down 8.4%, fashion fell 1.3% and electricals & home technology 0.1%.
"It hardly suggests that consumers are splashing out and it does little to dilute suspicions that consumer spending will be muted for some time to come, thereby limiting recovery prospects," says Howard Archer, chief UK economist at IHS Global Insight.
A rise in some mortgage rates and unemployment is likely to keep consumer spending muted for "some considerable time to come", he adds.
Supermarket Waitrose had another strong week, though, with sales up 10.1% to £85.21m.
The latest TNS (NYSE: TNS - news) data reveals growth of 7% for the 12 weeks to 14 June and an increase in market share to 4.08%, gaining from M&S, Tesco (LSE: TSCO.L - news) and Sainsbury (LSE: SBRY.L - news) 's.
Partnership sales were up 4.5% last week to £136.11m.
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