Britain shopped for joy in 2025. That’s according to John Lewis twelfth annual How we Shop, Live and Look report, revealing the consumer behaviours, cultural shifts and surprising trends that defined the year – even amidst the economic uncertainty.
2025 saw a nation swapping pared-back minimalism for expressive colour, comfort and ‘Nowstalgia’, while embracing wellness, repair culture and outdoor living more than ever.
Detailed within the report, customers doubled down on wellbeing. Sleepmaxxing – attempting to get the best possible night’s sleep – was a dominant trend, including down the bed, with sales of Super King size beds up by 39%, almost twice the amount of doubles.
In fact, sales of double mattresses were down 5%, while sales of king beds rose 23%. “People want better sleep,” says Jason Wilary-Attew, director of home at John Lewis, “and people are willing to spend more on a king or super king sized bed and mattress to ensure that.”
Elsewhere within the Home section, chrome delivered strong results across multiple product categories, including lights, coffee tables and even armchairs.
On johnlewis.com, searches for ‘chrome lights’ have increased sixfold compared to this time last year, as shoppers swap muted matte finishes for “some reflective joy” in the words of Jason. “Chrome can meld into the background while providing a pop of light, rather than a pop of colour.”
One of the star products has been the Hoxton armchair, which has a tubular chrome frame with cocoa-coloured chenille upholstery. On the colourway, cocoa is appearing in almost every room of the house as the perfect neutral – in chenille to add a bit of luxe or to soften and ground chrome. The best selling shade for the 1970s inspired curve chairs? Cocoa. “We’ve all had enough of grey,” says Jason. “Brown is a great neutral and also that warmth of brown just feels a bit more luxurious.”
Furthermore, the Marcy armchair was one of John Lewis’s best-selling pieces of furniture in 2025, selling out five times, with 11 days being the longest time period the retailer could keep it in stock for.
Meanwhile, standalone book cases are on the rise, while sales of embroidered cushions were up 8%, with sales of Suzani embroidered cushions rose 11% and sales of garden furniture increased 21%. “Understandably, the year or two after lockdowns there was a bit of a slump,” says Jason. “The moment people were able to go on holiday again, they spent the money on going abroad. But this summer a lot of people updated their gardens.”
John Lewis said it saw an extra 100,000 visits to its website every single week in 2025, but also highlighted the importance of the instore experience.
While the John Lewis website and app account for 60.9% of sales (up 1.5% vs. 2024), this figure is misleading. In a survey of over 1,100 John Lewis customers, only 22% of customers buying substantial items completed the entire transaction online.
In the huge majority of cases people who came in store to research a significant purchase did so. Crucially, 48% cited the experience of simply “wandering around” as the main attraction for visiting, proving that in-store discovery is essential to the modern shopping journey.
The data saw 18% that researched online and went in store to purchase, while 9% who browsed in store then went to buy online and 27% catered for those that like to browse and buy in store.
Looking ahead in the home sector, Jason said that indigo will appear in lots of home furnishings in 2026, not least in a range of new plain-dye bedding. “Indigo bridges the gap between Modern and Classic looks – a timeless shade that brings depth, serenity and sophistication to every space. It layers well with earthy browns.”
