Black Friday deals boost John Lewis fashion sales by 9.9 percent

For the week to November 25, 2017, after a few weeks of challenging sales in the run up to Black Friday, John Lewis reported sales of 214.3 million pounds (284 million dollars), a 7.2 percent rise year on year. Marked by Black Friday and price matching through the ‘never knowingly undersold’ policy, the company said, it was the biggest ever week and Black Friday was the biggest ever day in John Lewis's trading history.

In category sales, fashion sales were up 9.9 percent, with beauty segment sales rising 27.5 percent and womenswear, 8.3 percent. Electricals also saw a strong sales gain of 9.7 percent with standout performances in mobile and wearable technology and small electricals. Home our sales were down 2.1 percent.

During the Black Friday event fell across two trading weeks, John Lewis said, it traded well in both shops and online with shops becoming increasingly busy as the weekend progressed. In distribution, its Magna Park centre saw a record day on Sunday when it processed 54 percent more units than the equivalent day in 2016. Across the weekend, the company packed on average nearly 13,000 units per hour across the network.

On Black Friday itself, the use of the John Lewis App between 12am and 8am for snapping up Black Friday deals increased by 36.8 percent and during its busiest hour for online sales from 9-10am, an average of 705 units were purchased per minute on johnlewis.com, the company said in a statement.