British retailer, the John Lewis Partnership, is to stop reporting weekly sales data for its department stores and upmarket supermarket chain Waitrose & Partners, it has announced.
The country's largest employee-owned business has been publishing weekly figures on its website for a decade and was alone among UK retailers in doing so.
But the partnership said Tuesday's numbers for the week to January 25, the final week of its 2019-20 financial year, would be the last weekly data set.
Employee Access
A partnership spokeswoman said weekly data would still be available to its 81,500 employees, which it calls partners, through its intranet and the Gazette staff magazine, which has carried weekly figures for over 100 years. However, the data would be for internal consumption only.
The new reporting structure follows the partnership's move, detailed in October, to operate as one business.
The partnership's sales and operating profit will no longer be split between the two brands. Instead, reporting will focus on general merchandise, grocery and services.
It said it will continue to disclose detailed information on trading when it publishes full and half year results and its annual report & accounts.
"What's not explained is why they can't still provide weekly sales (externally) with the new reporting structure, but I guess it goes without saying that nobody else does weekly figures and that JLP haven't got much to shout about in terms of performance," said veteran independent retail analyst Nick Bubb.
News by Reuters, edited by ESM. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine
