Lipstick, gazebos, factor 30 sunscreen and Christmas cards fell out of favour with shoppers this year as “Bum Bum” cream, Oura rings and sequins dominated the tills, John Lewis has reported.
The washout summer saw sales of gazebos fall by 25% as dehumidifier sales shot up 22%, umbrella sales rocketed by 94% and wellies rose 43%, according to the retailer’s annual How We Shop, Live and Look report.
Households seemed to have reached maximum working-from-home capacity as sales of office chairs fell 24% and an at-home “cocktail revolution” saw decorative ice mould sales soar by 88% and “boring” cube trays fall by 39%.
Meanwhile, sales of curtain tiebacks more than doubled to a 108% increase, novelty salt and pepper shaker sales soared by 1,040%, old-fashioned alarm clock sales jumped 23% and shaped trays – an essential component of the “trayscaping” Pinterest trend of gathering lifestyle items together in a picture – also more than doubled to 106%.
The steady decline of Christmas card sales in recent years took another dive, with boxed cards down 23% and individual cards down 15%, which John Lewis speculated could have been driven by first class stamps now costing £1.65.
In other shifting festive trends, the retailer reported a 13% slump in sales of 6ft Christmas trees and a 6% fall in sales of 7ft versions, while cheaper, smaller trees saw a 55% sales uplift.
John Lewis suggested smaller new-build homes could be behind the shift, but also found that many households were buying a smaller, artificial second tree alongside the main tree that tended to be real.
In health-related trends, sales of factor 30 suncreams saw a 20% fall in favour of more protective factor 50 alternatives, up 18%, while one in two of all rings sold at John Lewis is now an Oura Ring, a smart wearable which monitors more than 20 health metrics and has been seen on Gwyneth Paltrow, Prince Harry, Mark Zuckerberg and the England football team.
Searches for leopard print blouses on JohnLewis.com were up 173% on the previous 12 months, and the first UK leg of Taylor Swift’s Eras tour between June 7 and June 22 coincided with a 357% rise in searches for sequin dresses.
Sales of lip glosses, balms and oils shot up by 34% on last year, compared with sales of lip sticks rising by just 2%, and Sol de Janeiro’s Bum Bum moisturiser became John Lewis’s most successful beauty launch in its history after arriving on shelves in February.
John Lewis executive director Peter Ruis said: “Some things, as you will note, remain as fixed as they ever were: televisions continue to get wider, wet weather affects sales of garden furniture, nostalgia drives fashion trends, people can get very excited by a new beauty brand – Sol de Janeiro landed on our shelves in February, and rapidly became the most successful beauty launch in John Lewis’s history.
“There have also been some new trends: as Britain’s leading, quality beauty retailer we’ve seen the rapid ascent of lip glosses, balms and oils, which now make up half of all sales of lip products, one in two of all the rings sold at John Lewis is now an Oura Ring, a smart wearable which monitors over 20 health metrics, and the old-fashioned alarm clock has returned to the bedroom.”
