Shops open early for Black Friday

A recent trend has been for local high streets to follow suit and display huge posters claiming their version of the Black Friday sales. Last yr, Black Fri. overtook Cyber Mon. for the 1st time as Amazon.co.uk’s busiest day, when it sold greater than 5.5 million items at a rate of 64 per second.

Experian has predicted online sales in Britain to exceed $1.5 billion for the first time ever today. “We apologise to customers for any inconvenience caused”.

“Sorry for the delay”. In spite of scenes showing queues and tussles to for televisions sets, the reality of the online figures showed most household items were purchased over the internet during this time period, with just under two thirds of discounted furniture products and thirty percent of electrical appliances ordered via website rather than in person.

Argos responded to customer concerns by saying on Twitter: “Order confirmations are taking longer than normal”.

Other retailers being singled out on social media for slow websites include fashion hub Boohoo.com, Boots, River Island and Debenhams.

Tesco denied anything was wrong saying on Twitter: “Our website is fully operational”.

“We’re really happy with how it’s going so far. Feedback from customers today has been very positive #justsaying”.

The Metropolitan Police are advising Black Friday customers to use a different password for each online retailer they visit after a man was arrested on Thursday for trying to breach Tesco’s online system using usernames and passwords obtained from previous hacks.

Retailers made cut-price deals out there on-line from midnight and lots of spent the night getting ready to open their doors early to customers earnest to snap up discounted stock, starting from televisions to toothbrushes.

But for those who would rather avoid the stresses of the high demands Black Friday offers can make on retailers, there are still plenty of online savings to be enjoyed before this key pre-Christmas sales period kicks in.

Despite the publicity, some analysts are wary of the impact of the discounts on retailers’ pricing power, pointing out that some of chains which shunned the event a year ago, such as clothing retailers Next and Jigsaw, were among the best Christmas performers.

Retail researcher Conlumino is forecasting the event will generate United Kingdom sales, both in stores and online, of 1.6 billion pounds ($2.4 billion), up 20 percent on 2014.

“Let’s also remember today is a working day, with millions on office computers or on their smartphones at work able to shop easily and quickly online”.