John Lewis has busiest ever hour of online trading on Black Friday

Lauretta Roberts

24 November 2017

John Lewis experienced its busiest ever hour of online trading this morning between 9am to 10am, when an average of 705 units were purchased per minute on johnlewis.com.

The department store group said the most searched term throughout the day across all devices was 'iPad'. For mobile shoppers the top search term was also 'iPad', whereas 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 to last year. But it was the John Lewis app which 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 centre packed just over 10,000 units an hour - which is up nearly 7% on last year - and at its busiest period from 12pm to 1pm, this increased to 18,000 units.

Dino Rocos, Operations Director, John Lewis 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 this year 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."