Department store John Lewis set a new weekly sales record after “Black Friday”, with £187.7 million spent both online and in stores.

The retailer said on Friday that sales were up 4.8 percent on 2014, as the US Black Friday tradition continued to take hold in the UK. The strong figures continued on Saturday, with a 9.3 percent rise in in-store sales.

Five items per second passed through John Lewis’s distribution centre during its peak hour as the company processed 18 percent more parcels than last year over Black Friday and the following weekend.

Electrical items were the strongest seller, up 5.5 percent compared with last year.Sales of wearable technology such as fitness monitors up 850 percent, with branded Fitbit trackers up 1200 percent.

04/12/2015