John Lewis Partnership plc annual report and accounts 2013

To make our brand more accessible, we made important steps in giving customers a seamless, ‘omni-channel’ experience. johnlewis.com gross sales were up 41% to £959m and the channel now accounts for over 25% of trade. John Lewis shops gross sales were up 6.4% with like-for-like shop sales up 2.6%. Nearly two thirds of all transactions now involve customers visiting both shops and online channels.

Click & collect, available in all John Lewis and 193 Waitrose outlets, is a key part of this change in shopping behaviour and is our fastest-growing fulfilment channel. Orders have almost doubled year-on-year, with 43% of purchases collected from Waitrose branches.

We are also strengthening our information technology and supply chain infrastructure. In February 2013, we successfully relaunched johnlewis.com on a new £40m platform to support our online growth and have announced investment in a new distribution complex to sit alongside our existing operation at Magna Park.

We opened four shops in 2012/13; three ‘at home’ branches in Newbury, Chichester and Ipswich and a new format shop in Exeter, providing a full-line assortment in a smaller trading space. This year we will refurbish John Lewis High Wycombe and invest in refurbishments at John Lewis Oxford Street, Kingston and Nottingham. We are planning two new shops in 2014 in York and Birmingham.

Beyond our traditional products and services, John Lewis Insurance has seen good growth in 2012/13. We have also begun a partnership to host Kuoni travel services in our shops and, internationally, we have developed our first collaboration with Shinsegae, a South Korean department store. We will be launching French and German language websites later this year to take advantage of the two most well developed EU e-commerce markets.

John Lewis Operating profit (£m) and margin

2009  2010  2011  2012  2013

Operating margin

6.0% 6.6% 7.5% 5.9% 7.1%  

Operating profit

141 160 201 158 217

John Lewis Operating profit per selling square foot (£)

2009  2010  2011  2012  2013

38 41 50 38 48

John Lewis Operating profit per FTE (£000)

 2009  2010  2011  2012  2013

6.6 7.6 9.0 7.1 9.5

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