John Lewis Black Friday and Cyber Monday deal predictions for 2018

The pressure is on for John Lewis this Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Despite earning its best single day sales performance ever in 2017, this year’s sales event follows news that the retail giant’s profits slipped 99% from last year (netting just £1.2 million) for the six months to July 28.

Black Friday weekend (starting this Friday, November 23 and continuing until Cyber Monday November 26) is imperative for a resurgence in the business and faith of its partners. The company has made efforts to rebrand itself as John Lewis & Partners, in a bid to champion the chain's 85,000 members of staff (or "partners") who are given an annual bonus based on profits.

Black Friday holds a lot of promise for the company and consumers alike. John Lewis raked in in £214.3 million in the first 24 hours last year and saw spikes of up to 705 items sold per minute online.

Like last year, we expect John Lewis to kick the UK's busiest day in retail off by launching their biggest deals at midnight. Doing so creates a time-sensitive desire to shop that is seldom attainable - perhaps only by their famed Christmas ads, otherwise - but helped many of their deals sell out by the time lunch break shoppers went browsing.

With a couple of weeks to go, it’s important to know where to find the best Black Friday deals for 2018 and which products are likely to save us the most money.

For John Lewis, there is likely to be a little bit of everything on offer. More, in fact, than most retailers as their inventory tends to stock the best of everything from beauty products to furniture.

Tech is likely to be at the forefront of their biggest deals but home appliances, toys, TVs, kitchenware, and fashion are also steadfast standards of their Black Friday sale items.

In addition to competitive pricing, the company’s Never Knowingly Undersold policy is a significant source for Black Friday savings. The year-round commitment to value means John Lewis constantly compare their prices with high street competitors and price matches the best of them - even on promotional deals.

Though the offers will be more difficult to update in-store than online, brick and mortar stores will honour all online price updates over the Black Friday weekend and beyond.

John Lewis Black Friday predictions

In John Lewis’ own words, Black Friday is "the perfect time to stock up on Christmas presents" and that is likely to be the retailer’s cornerstone for 2018.

As the majority of consumers gravitate towards Black Friday tech deals, John Lewis will offer a vast selection of their own. Only with the added bonuses of free delivery or click-and-collect, a minimum two-year guarantee on all electrical goods, and Never Knowingly Undersold pricing.

High-tech TVs and computers have been favourites of John Lewis’ deals in years past, with more recent inclusions of smart home devices.  If you’ve been considering upgrading or expanded your home tech, Black Friday is the time.

Last year, the Google Home Mini smart speaker was reduced from £50 to £34 and was price-matched to the Amazon Echo Dot. The hands-free virtual assistants are likely to be discounted by the same amount, if not more, this year to balance their long-standing rivalry.

Headphones are always competitively priced over Black Friday and the Sony MDR-1000X wireless headphones were John Lewis’ best of the bunch. They took £100 off the £299.99 model and we expect similar savings for the product’s latest generation - the WH 1000XM2.

A massive £400 was knocked off the Lenovo Yoga 910 convertible laptop last year. While the model is no longer available from John Lewis, similar models (ie those with a Core i7 processor, 8GB RAM, 4K screen and 256GB SSD) are expected to be heavily reduced. Low stock, especially for out-of-production models, often engineers enormous savings.

Smaller deals are expected across products that are less frequently discounted like clothing, fitness trackers, games consoles, and more. We expect to see roughly £20 to £30 off each.

Gamers are likely to be offered much more by way of bundle deals. Though it’s unlikely you’ll see £100s off a PS4, PS4 Pro or Xbox One X, bundles often include £100s off popular games to accompany new models.

Keep an eye out for updates on John Lewis’ Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals to secure your shopping strategy.