John Lewis is Black Friday winner as fashion sales rise

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Nov 28, 2017

After a few weeks of challenging sales in the run up to Black Friday, John Lewis had something to boast  about on Tuesday morning as it unveiled strong sales in the seven days to November 25.

The retailer’s sales rose 7.2% to £214.3 million and, despite the company not having mentioned its Fashion directory in its Black Friday updates, it seems that the final tally shows Fashion was actually a strong category.

Fashion sales were up 9.9%, with a particularly strong week in the beauty sub-category (up 27.5%), and womenswear (up 8.3%) and with a record online week for sales. Bestsellers across the Black Friday period included Creed Aventus Eau de Parfum, Liz Earle Cleanse & Polish Hot Cloth Cleanser and the Barbour Wax Cotton Travel Explorer Holdall.

Overall, the company said that price matching through its Never Knowingly Undersold policy helped make the seven days its biggest ever week and Black Friday was the biggest trading day yet in its long history.

Its Black Friday event fell across two trading weeks (Thursday-Monday) and it “traded well in both shops and online with shops becoming increasingly busy as the weekend progressed.”

In distribution, its Magna Park centre saw a record day on Sunday when it processed 54% more units than the equivalent day in 2016. Across the weekend, its packed on average nearly 13,000 units per hour across its network. On Black Friday itself, use of the John Lewis App increased by 36.8% between midnight and 08:00.

Did the company have any bad news? Well, with the majority of Black Friday deals focused on Fashion and Electrials and Home Technology, in Home its sales were down 2.1%. There were some strong sellers there though and these included the John Lewis Sacha Sofa Bed, the SIMBA Hybrid Memory Foam Pocket Spring Mattress and the John Lewis Brunswick Spruce Christmas Tree.