September 24, 2005 | posted by Michael Baxter in Uncategorized |

Now even John Lewis is suffering from the High Street malaise. Over the six months to 30 July, group profits were down 3% to £78mn. And while sales were up 10%, in stores open more than a year sales were down 1.5%. Chairman, Sir Stuart Hampson, said: “There’s been plenty of recent comment that High Street trading over the last six months has been the worst in 15 years. I’d certainly agree with that, particularly the severity of the downturn for non-food retail spending.” But there was some good news. Like for like sales at grocery subsidiary Waitrose were up 4.4%, and the company is still pressing ahead with plans to open a further 10 departments stores over the next two years.