56% of John Lewis’s online Christmas sales happened via Click&Collect

John Lewis has revealed that its click & Collect service broke records over the Christmas period. In the five weeks to December 27, which included Black Friday and Cyber Monday, over half of John Lewis’ sales were picked up via click and collect. But there was also a downside to this period, John Lewis confesses…

The British department store today published its five-week sales update, where it shows that for this period total online sales were up 19% on last year, with the sales happening via johnlewis.com representing 36% (versus 32% last year) of total sales during this period, which is 991.5 million euros. And just like the company has anticipated, the click & collect delivery option proved to be the delivery means of choice, with 56% of their online orders being collected in physical stores, overtaking home delivery this Christmas.

The company also announced that the week of Black Friday (November 28) was “the biggest week for sales in our 150 year history and was up +22% on last year, with our website experiencing a 300% increase in traffic during the early hours of trading on Black Friday itself.”

Was Black Friday such a good idea?
But was Black Friday really such a positive experience for John Lewis? The amount of revenue this department store made in the week had fallen 1.4% from €163.3 million in 2013 to €161.1 million in 2014. And sales in the week up to Christmas were also less than in the week John Lewis ran Black Friday deals.

John Lewis’s managing director Andy Street told the BBC that the US-inspired phenomenon was “more challenging profitability-wise”. He added: “We’ve got to ask if it’s right to concentrate trade so much in that one period. My personal hope is that this is the high water mark for Black Friday. I don’t think we can put the genie back in the bottle but do we need to stoke that fire anymore? I personally hope not.”

The extremely popular Christmad ad from John Lewis: