Black Friday and Cyber Monday are certainly doing the trick for stores, as they helped give Irish retail sales a pre-Christmas boost.

The latest CSO figures show that sales were up 0.9% in November over the previous month and – if car sales are excluded – it made for a major monthly rise of 3.1%. From an annual perspective, sales jumped 4.3%, further evidence that the sector has rebounded.

The strong performance was spurred by a huge surge in the purchase of electrical goods, which climbed 17% on the month before, likely thanks to those two big sale days.

Electrical retailers enjoyed a 13.8% improvement on their November 2015 showing.

Pharmaceutical, medical and cosmetics also saw a noteworthy monthly boost, up 7.9%. The motor trade and Irish bars, however, saw month-on-month volume decreases of 1% and 0.9% respectively.