John Lewis celebrates record Black Friday sales
John Lewis has reported that sales rose by 7.2% to £214.3 million year-on-year last week to mark the retailer’s biggest ever week. In addition, Black Friday was the biggest ever trading day in John Lewis’s trading history.
The uplift follows a few weeks of what the retailer described as challenging sales.
John Lewis said it traded well in both its 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% more units than the equivalent day in 2016.
On Black Friday itself, the use of the John Lewis App between 12am and 8am increased by 36.8%. During what was the retailer’s busiest ever hour for online sales from 9-10am, an average of 705 units were purchased per minute on johnlewis.com.
Looking at the sales categories, fashion sales were up 9.9% in the week with womenswear sales climbing by 8.3%.
Electricals also saw a strong performance with sales rising by 9.7%. Best sellers across the Black Friday period included the Sonos Play 1 Smart Speaker, LG Smart TVs and Apple Macbooks.
With the majority of Black Friday deals focused on fashion and electricals, sales in the home category were down 2.1% in the week. Some of the best sellers in the category for the Black Friday period included the John Lewis Sacha Sofa Bed, the SIMBA Hybrid Memory Foam Pocket Spring Mattress and the John Lewis Brunswick Spruce Christmas Tree.
Dino Rocos, operations director at John Lewis, said: “The successful sales performance of the week is down to the hard work and planning of Partners across shops, distribution centres and at head office – all of whom have played a key role in reaching this milestone performance.”
