John Lewis smashes sales record thanks to Black Friday

History seems to have a way of repeating itself, although for John Lewis it can only lead to a favourable outcome. Following last year's recording breaking sales spurred by the holiday promotional day Black Friday, comes the British department stores biggest sales week in history.

In spite of Andy Street, managing director at John Lewis, mixed views of the discount bonanza day, the department store group reported "stand-out success" last week in terms of sales. Black Friday was singled out as the single largest day of trading for the department store, with sales increasing 11.9 percent compared to last year.

"In a week which saw trade fuelled by Black Friday and our price matching of competitor events, sales were up 4.8 percent on last year, up 27.6 percent on 2 years and up 60.1 percent percent week-on-week," said the group in a statement issued on Friday. "It was John Lewis’s biggest ever week for sales in our trading history, at 187.7 million pounds. Online sales on johnlewis.com were up 15.5 percent year-on-year."

Women's wear fashion sales increased 45.6 percent during the week, as established brands such as Ted Baker , Barbour and Michael Kors drew shoppers in. John Lewis also thanked its distribution team, who processed an 18 percent increase of parcel across Black Friday, Saturday and Sunday compared to the same weekend last year.