With the festive season getting closer, brands and supermarkets such as John Lewis and Waitrose have revealed their plans for opening times.
John Lewis and Waitrose have revealed that more than 300 stores will stay closed on Boxing Day and New Year’s Day, despite this time of year being popular with shoppers.
This announcement comes as recent years have seen more supermarkets allow their staff to take days off during the key holiday dates, Sky News reports.
The likes of Home Bargains are expected to close all of its branches again on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year's Day, allowing its staff to enjoy a break and spend time with loved ones.
John Lewis and Waitrose to close more than 300 stores on Boxing Day 2024
Big brands such as Wilko and The Range closed their stores on Boxing Day in 2023, so the UK could see additional closures during the festive season again this year.
Despite the large number of John Lewis and Waitrose branches closing, some premium Waitrose sites attached to petrol stations will stay open during the Christmas period.
The John Lewis stores in Trafford and Stratford shopping centre will also stay open, according to Sky News.
Should supermarkets open on Boxing Day? Let us know in our poll below.
John Lewis Partnership says annual profits would be “significantly” higher
The John Lewis Partnership revealed sharply narrowed half-year losses earlier this month and said annual profits would be “significantly” higher as its overhaul starts to bear fruit.
The employee-owned group, which runs the department store chain and Waitrose supermarket arm, reported pre-tax losses of £30 million for the six months to July 27, down 49% on the £59 million reported a year earlier.
The John Lewis department store business saw half-year sales fall 3% to £2 billion, but Waitrose notched up 5% sales growth as average prices rose just over 2%.
Its losses were also boosted as the group stripped out £78 million in costs, revealing that 300 jobs across the group were axed in the first half.
The group said while the consumer and economic backdrop was “uncertain”, it was confident of a marked improvement in underlying profits at the full-year stage.
But it gave no indication over whether it would reinstate its annual staff bonus, which has not been handed out for two years running.
Recommended reading:
- Aldi's sell out Heated Airer that costs 6p an hour to run is back this week
- Calls for the DWP Christmas bonus to be boosted to more than £100
- Lidl faces backlash after introducing some cashless self-service tills
Nish Kankiwala, chief executive of the John Lewis Partnership, told the PA news agency the group would make a decision on the staff bonus in March next year.
John Lewis said: “We have historically delivered the majority of our profits in the second half of the year.
“Despite the environment for our customers remaining uncertain, we expect to maintain financial momentum from consistent delivery of our multi-year transformation.
“As a result, we are confident that full-year pre-exceptional profits should be significantly above the £42 million we reported in 2023-24.”
Mr Kankiwala said the “buzz is back at John Lewis”.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel