In a week which saw trade fuelled by Black Friday and the retailer price-matching competitor events, John Lewis delivered sales of £179.1m, up 21.8% on last year and up 56.8% on the week – the biggest ever week of sales in the retailer's 150-year trading history. This surpassed the previous sales record of £164.4m, set during the week before Christmas last year.
The retailer hit a record week for online sales, up 42.2% year-on-year. On Black Friday several of its shops achieved record takings for the day, including Oxford Street, York, Southampton, Liverpool, Ipswich and Tamworth.
Black Friday started on the stroke of midnight as customers logged on to johnlewis.com, resulting in a 300% increase in traffic during the early hours. About 70% of the traffic came from smartphones and tablets between midnight and 8am. For the first time, ever all the retailer's shops opened at 8am, and at the same time online sales also peaked with almost 13,000 orders placed on johnlewis.com between 8am and 9am. In its distribution centres on Friday, teams picked and packed 54% more online parcels compared to last year's Black Friday, increasing to 87% on Saturday as customer orders from Friday were processed.
The Home directorate's trade was up 3.6% year on year. Lighting saw another record week, up 10.2% year-on-year, while furniture sales also remained strong, up 15.5% year-on-year.
