Black Friday ‘exceeds expectations’ for John Lewis

John Lewis marked its busiest ever hour of online trading today (Friday November 24).

The department store group said Black Friday 2017 is set to be one of its most successful days. From 9am to 10am this morning, an average of 705 units were purchased per minute on johnlewis.com.

The number one search term throughout the day across all devices was ‘iPad’. For mobile shoppers, the top search term was also ‘iPad’, while the most popular search term for those shopping on the John Lewis app or via desktop was ‘Sonos’.

Traffic to the John Lewis website across all channels was up 4.8% compared with last year. But the John Lewis app proved the most popular way for customers to shop, with traffic peaking between 1pm and 2pm, up 92.3% year-on-year.

The retailer’s distribution centres packed just over 10,000 units an hour – up nearly 7% on last year. At the busiest period, from 12pm to 1pm, this increased to 18,000 units.

To date, the most popular products sold include the 2017 Apple MacBook Air (13.3in Intel Core i5, 8GB RAM, 128GB PCle-based SSD – £849.00), which was the biggest seller by value. The Sonos PLAY:1 Smart Speaker (£149.00), which was the biggest seller by volume.

For Home, the top seller by value was the John Lewis Sacha Sofa Bed (from £699). For Beauty, best sellers included CREED Aventus Eau de Parfum (£207) and Liz Earle Cleanse & Polish Hot Cloth Cleanser (£13.60).

John Lewis operations director Dino Rocos said: “Sales on johnlewis.com both overnight and into the day itself have exceeded expectations – and between 9am and 10am we hit our busiest ever hour for online trade.

“We expect traffic will continue to the website throughout the weekend, with customers favouring the App as a quick and convenient way to shop. In addition, we expect our 49 shops to welcome customers over the weekend as deals run into the early part of next week.”

Customers are invited to take part in Black Friday on johnlewis.com until midnight on Monday (November 27).