The hunt for bargains has helped two major UK High Street retailers achieve better-than-expected trading figures  

The hunt for bargains has helped two major UK High Street retailers achieve better-than-expected trading figures

John Lewis today reported a record-breaking £500 million in sales during the five weeks to January 2, while fashion retailer Next raised profit forecasts after trading levels exceeded expectations.

Robin Landy, founder of price-comparison browser add-on, InvisibleHand commented: “John Lewis’ record breaking Christmas sales figure is in no short measure due to consumers flocking online to bag themselves a bargain when sales kicked off on Christmas Eve.”

Landy said retailers were capitalising on the migration from High Street to online and were consistently putting their best prices on the web first, before they ever hit the high streets.

A blip or sign of times to come?

Despite the fact that last year, Next’s Christmas update sent its shares spiralling 19% after a profit warning, both retailers sounded a note of cautious optimism when predicting if the Christmas 2009 sales growth would continue through 2010.

The biggest UK online and home shopping firm, Shop Direct, also said it had experienced a storng Christmas trading performance across its brands, which include Woolworths.co.uk, Littlewoods, Kays and Marshall Ward.

Now all eyes are turning to Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury's, which report on Wednesday and Thursday respectively, to see if they have managed to match the performances announced today by their counterparts.