John Lewis witnesses record breaking Black Friday sales

REPORT_ Black Friday helped deliver the biggest week ever for sales in John Lewis's 150 year trading history. Overall sales were up 21.8 percent on last year with online sales recording a 42.2 percent year-on-year growth. Several shops achieved record takings on Black Friday itself, including Oxford Street, York, Southampton, Liverpool, Ipswich and Tamworth. John Lewis operates 43 John Lewis shops across the UK as well as johnlewis.com.

In a week which saw trade fuelled by Black Friday John Lewis delivered sales of 179.1 million pounds (280.1 million dollars) compared to last year and up 56.8 percent week-on-week to deliver the biggest ever week for sales in its 150 year trading history. This surpassed the previous sales record of 164.4 million pounds (257.1 million dollars) which was set during the week before Christmas last year.

Commenting on overwhelming response received during the sale event, Dino Rocos, Operations Director, John Lewis said, “There was clearly huge customer anticipation of Black Friday this year and we knew we had high expectations to meet, both in terms of the products we had on offer through our never knowingly undersold commitment, and in ensuring that we fulfilled customer orders as promised.”

Black Friday sales event kicked off at midnight as customers logged on early to browse johnlewis.com resulting in a 300 percent increase of traffic during the early hours of trading. Continuing the trend for mobile shopping, approximately 70 percent of the traffic came from smartphones and tablets between midnight and 8am. For the first time ever all John Lewis shops as well as its ecommerce platform opened at 8am with almost 13,000 orders placed on johnlewis.com between 8am and 9am. In its distribution centres across the country on Friday, teams packed over 54 percent more online parcels compared to last year's Black Friday event with this uplift increasing to over 87 percent on Saturday as customer orders from Friday were processed.

Fashion among all other categories performed well for the week closing at over 16.7 percent year-on-year and on Black Friday the directorate posted its biggest ever sales for a single day's trade. Menswear and sport was the standout category, up 16.6 percent for the week compared to last year, with Barbour, Ted Baker and Polo Ralph Lauren all reporting record sales. In accessories, handbags had a record week with sales over 37 percent year-on-year, while brands which were included in its price matching were popular, including Mulberry and Michael Kors.