This year‘s Black Friday was the biggest-ever single day‘s trade for John Lewis, up 11.9% on last year. 

Looking at the weekend as a whole, consumer shopping behaviour was different to last year. On Black Friday itself sales were mostly driven by online sales while stores were busy at the weekend, illustrated by a 9.3% increase in sales on the Saturday.  

On Black Friday, sales peaked between 9-10am when the site was taking 4.9 orders per second. The British retailer attributed the success to its distribution team, who processed 18% more parcels across Friday, Saturday and Sunday compared to last year, and 5 units per second during the peak hour.  

The department store chain‘s electricals buying office had a strong performance and saw its biggest ever day for sales on Black Friday. Wearable tech experienced a 932% increase with Fitbits up over 1329% on last year. Dyson products were up by 208% and GHD 83%. Sales of ‘connected home‘ goods rose 63%, and gaming product sales grew 246%.  

In the fashion category, the Barbour brand proved particularly popular, up 61% online, while Ted Baker sales increased a stylish 66% vs last year on johnnlewis.com. Lego was also a favourable choice, as sales jumped 90% on the year on the John Lewis website. 

“Black Friday itself marked a record day for John Lewis and strong trade continued into the weekend,” said Retail Director Mark Lewis. “On Friday online trade really stepped forward, while shops saw their biggest increases over the weekend, showing that more than ever customers like to mix and match channels to shop in the most convenient way for them. 

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