Mobile accounts for 76% of Christmas Day traffic at John Lewis

The winter clearance Sale at the department store group began online at 5pm on Christmas Eve, with orders up 13% on last year during the first hour.

On Christmas Day online orders were 19% up compared with last year.

More customers than ever before chose to browse on mobile devices with Christmas Eve seeing mobile take 56% of the traffic. On Christmas Day this number rose to 76%.

The growth of mobile follows a record final pre-Christmas week for John Lewis. The week ending Saturday 21 December saw sales of £164.4m, up 4.2% on the same week last year and breaking the £160m barrier for the first time.

Mark Lewis, online director at John Lewis, said: “We predicted in October that mobile would be the shining star of Christmas 2013. With tablets being the must-have product throughout the year it was clear that mobile would step up, but yesterday surpassed even our expectations.

“The tipping point has now passed and we expect mobile to be the way the majority of people shop online from now on. It will only grow from here and we will be working hard to ensure we meet our customers’ expectations, be that new technology or the seamless experience across multiple channels.”

He added social media has become more important. “Shopping is becoming much more of a social experience with people browsing, purchasing and sharing ideas with others using their mobile phones and tablets.”