Housewares Business-to-business magazine for housewares retailers and their suppliers
Last week (to November 26) was the biggest ever in John Lewis’ trading history history, and included its biggest ever day on Friday November 25.
Marked by Black Friday (November 25) and price matching through its Never Knowingly Undersold policy, the retailer achieved sales just shy of £200m, at £199.8m – up 6.5% year-on-year.
The department store group’s Black Friday event fell across two trading weeks (Thursday-Monday). It traded well both in-store and online, with shops becoming busier as the weekend progressed.
Home sales were up 0.9% with key product highlights including sales from Joseph Joseph, Le Creuset, Portmeirion and Charbonnel and Walker. Furniture sales as a category were up 4.5%.
But electricals led the way with an 11% year-on-year increase. Best sellers included the Sonos Play 1, GHD hair straighteners, Samsung TVs and KitchenAid.
Fashion sales were up 4.6%, with a particularly strong week in beauty (up 13.4%), womenswear (up 15.1%), menswear (up 8.1%) and sports up 26.1%. Best sellers included Ted Baker and Michael Kors in women’s accessories, Barbour in menswear and womenswear, and Calvin Klein pyjamas and lingerie.
Dino Rocos, lead director and operations director of John Lewis, said: “Overall, the success of the week’s trade for John Lewis is down to meticulous planning and expert execution.
“In distribution, our Magna Park centre saw a record day on Saturday when it processed 33% more units than the equivalent day in 2015. Across the weekend, we picked, on average, 12,000 units per hour across our network.
“On Black Friday itself, customers shopped on mobile phones between midnight and 9am, but desktop quickly took the largest share of traffic from 9am onwards as customers arrived at work. At our busiest time on Friday morning, we took five orders every second on johnlewis.com.
“From our retail and distribution partners [staff members] who helped customers get the products they wanted, to our teams behind the scenes in commercial and IT, each of our partners should be rightly proud of the part they have played in delivering this milestone result.”
John Lewis Black Friday
