Trading at John Lewis continued to suffer in the wake of exceptionally warm weather last week, with sales at Britain’s biggest department store operator down 2.9 per cent in the seven days to June 6.

However, the results were significantly better than the previous week’s figures, where sales had dropped 8.3 per cent.

The pattern confirmed the tendency of department stores to underperform in warm weather. Sunshine at the start of the week hit sales but John Lewis recorded good trade on Saturday when the weather in most of the UK was awful.

In contrast, the hot weather boosted Waitrose, the company’s supermarkets, where total sales rose by 9.8 per cent, slightly down on the 10.5 per cent growth recorded in the week ending May 30.

“Although the hot weather at the start of the week meant we missed last year’s score by 2.9 per cent, this represents an improvement on our strike rate for the year to date,” Andrew Murphy, the operational director of John Lewis, said.

Online sales at johnlewis.com continued to grow at 7 per cent while sales at John Lewis Aberdeen led the shop increases. But most of the 25 stores saw sales fall.

In total, John Lewis’s sales are down by 5.3 per cent so far this year.

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