A mix of Black Friday reductions and festive-buzz generated by its "Man on the Moon" advert helped John Lewis to record its strongest week of sales in its trading history - taking in £187.7m (€261m) last week.

John Lewis has reported that this is a 4.8% increase on the corresponding week in 2014 - this was 27.6% higher than the same week two years ago and 60.1% more than the previous week.

The two minute advert has passed 20 million views on YouTube since it was uploaded on November 5th. The store has been making these Christmas spots since 2007.

Management Today has been crunching the numbers and comparing the performances of John Lewis and its rival Debenhams in the UK.

Its findings show a greater Christmas-kick in John Lewis sales, rising by 37.7% - compared to a 27.5% rise in Debenhams - suggesting that the yuletide push is working.

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