John Lewis posted record sales for the last week, after ‘Black Friday’ shoppers boosted revenue.
The UK retailer reached sales of £199.8 million in the week to last Friday, up 6.5 percent from the same period the year before. Whilst the ‘Black Friday’ concept may have failed to resonate with UK consumers to the same extent as their US counterparts, shoppers spent a total of £2.9 billion across the weekend.
Dino Rocos, the company’s lead operations director, said of the successful week:
“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.”
John Lewis noted the biggest rise in sales within their technology and fashion departments. Particularly, electronic sales proved a large boost to revenue, rising around 11 percent year on year. Similarly, their fashion division saw a rise by 4.6 percent as a result of strong sales in Beauty, Womenswear, Sport and Menswear divisions.
In addition, the group’s Waitrose supermarkets saw sales of £136.6 million last week, up by 1.3 percent. Beer, wine and spirits proved to be the the biggest sellers for the grocer, with sales climbing by 4.5 percent as consumers prepared for the Christmas party season.
Cyber Monday
However, retailers are increasingly having to adapt to the proliferation of online markets and retail. At the height of activity across the weekend, John Lewis saw five orders placed every second on Friday morning. In the U.S, figures reveal that ‘Cyber Monday’ narrowly surpassed ‘Black Friday’ with $3.34 billion worth of sales. Shops also saw a 2 percent rise in footfall.
The earnings for the week ultimately have marked a record profit for the group as a result of the US imported ‘Black Friday’ Sales concept.