A tough week for trade is how department store group John Lewis described the seven days to March 26 when warmer weather and a late-falling Easter and Mother’s Day were blamed for putting a 3.8 per cent dent in year-on-year sales.

The Fashion and Home directorate may have been hit hard but for Electricals and Home Technology it turned out to be a good week. Here, year-on-year sales were up five per cent, helped, said Home buying director Paula Nickolds, by the excitement of the launch of the iPad 2 and Nintendo DSi 3D.

Online sales at johnlewis.com also continued to do well. They were 17.5 per cent ahead of a year ago, with Click & Collect growing by 50 per cent.

“Our stock and availability measures across all shops and online were excellent, which should give us confidence that we are in a strong position to trade well through the seasonal opportunity ahead,” Ms Nickolds said.