Did your business experience a peak in sales over Black Friday and Cyber Monday? We take a look at the winners and losers for the key weekend in the retail calendar and see how consumers responded this year.

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Black Friday: how did businesses do?

Since its arrival from the US, Black Friday has become a key date in many retailers’ calendars. After last year’s bumper sales, we look at which businesses took advantage and what smaller companies can learn from their success.

The spending

This year’s Black Friday weekend was the biggest ever, with sales of £3.3 billion. Black Friday itself saw £1.1 billion in online spending (the first time that it’s ever topped the £1 billion mark), a 34% increase on last year.

However, in store sales were quieter, with footfall down 4.5% on last year. Sainsbury’s in particular found they didn’t need the increased staffing that it had in place, although it still had success with its online sales.

The winners

With overall sales up, there was mostly good news for retailers, but there were some companies had particular success. These included:

• John Lewis: online sales were up 15.5% and the company achieved its best ever week’s trading with sales of £187.7 million.
• Sainsbury’s: sales of Black Friday products were two and half times the value of last year.
• Amazon: sold 7.4 million items, up from 5.5 million in 2014. That made Black Friday its strongest day of sales in the UK.
• Electrical goods manufacturers: sales of electrical items were up 5.5% and wearable technology was up 850%

The losers

Not everyone was a winner though. Some companies didn’t seem to be prepared for the level of orders they received.

• Argos: a high level of sales led to problems with delayed deliveries, cancellations and poor response time from customer services.
• Tesco Direct: apologised to customers as they were unable to offer express delivery and standard delivery was extended to 5-7 days.

The opt-outs

After the mayhem of last year’s Black Friday, many retailers decided to opt-out. Asda, Next and Jigsaw were just some of the big name businesses who decided not to take part. Retail analyst Richard Hyman said that just over a quarter of retailers opted out this year. Whether that’s due to the lowered margin or the extra costs, a third of retailers say it’s not profitable.

What you can learn

OK, so it’s a year until the next Black Friday but many of these tips can be applied at any time to help increase your sales. Here are our key takeaways from the businesses who did well on Black Friday.

• Decide if you’ll join in: if you don’t think Black Friday is right for your business, you don’t have to follow suit with other retailers. Look at how it might affect your margins and if you opt out, think of other ways to win business in the run up to Christmas.
• Make sure you’re ready for Black Friday itself: although many retailers targeted the whole weekend (or even the whole week), figures show that Cyber Monday had half as many transactions. So make sure you’re ready for the biggest retail day.
• Do a two-fold approach: as many people are at work on Black Friday, they went online to get the best deals and then visited stores over the weekend. Getting both your online and offline offerings right helps you win the most business, something that was very successful for John Lewis.
• Be ready to meet demand: Argos showed just how wrong things can go if you don’t have a good handle on your stock levels and can’t meet delivery schedules. Plan ahead so you have enough stock and staff in place to handle orders. And make sure you get back to customers if there is a problem.
• ...and handle returns: before you count the income you get from Black Friday, don’t forget to factor in any returns. Retail intelligence company Clear Returns estimated that retailers could lose £130 million from Black Friday due to returns. Be sure to have a system in place to handle this so you can get the stock back into circulation as soon as possible and ensure you’re not short in the run-up to Christmas. Offering advice and guides to buying (from size charts to detailed product information) can help minimise the amount of goods that are sent back.