We are now starting to get more data of the real impact of the Black Friday retail frenzy.

On the 10 December 2014, I wrote an article about delivery issues that some of the largest retailers faced as a result of Black Friday craziness. I was also interrogative on the real impact on the bottom line Black Friday will have on the entire peak trading period.

John Lewis confirmed to the BBC that Black Friday was “more challenging profitability-wise”.

According to the Guardian, John Lewis saw sales fall back 1.4% in Christmas week as sales of electrical goods were pulled forward by the Black Friday promotional weekend.

Furthermore, John Lewis said to the BBC that “online purchases were behind a rise in Christmas sales, despite shop purchases falling over the festive period and like-for-like sales were up 4.8% in the five weeks to December 27 – as store sales dropped around 1%”.

John Lewis boss added “Black Friday is a blessing in the sky as we can achieve record sales online and that our customers can have confidence in the delivery”.

Andy Street made a direct comment on its competitors who weren’t able to deliver as a result of the massive surge in sales:

“it is quite challenging for the rest of the industry as it is pushing all this trading in one day”.    The proportion of sales taken online during one day compared to the entire festive period is a new thing in the UK and the “dependence on fulfillment”.

M Street do not think that the retailers “can put the genie back in the bottle”, however he hopes that next Black Friday won’t be bigger.

Street declared in the Guardian that he believed “John Lewis had outperformed rivals because of its investment in IT and delivery facilities, which meant it was able to meet online orders without any hitches during peak periods, including Black Friday”.

Well done to their Online team, analysts and architects who were able to get the investments and capacity solutions correctly sized and approved. This is pretty impressive when one day web visits were up 300% YoY.

It fair to say that Black Friday ‘effect’ is not as productive as retailers expected. Basically, it sounds that they are selling similar volumes but at a discounted price, hence impacting their profitability.

We are now waiting for Christmas sales data from John Lewis competitors.