Chaos-free Black Friday for UK

As thousands checked out the sales online for Black Friday and millions more will shop online in the run up to Christmas, the Met Police is urging shoppers to use a different password for each online retailer they visit.

Visa Europe expects its customers to spend approx. It gauges a crest in exchanging somewhere around 1pm and 2pm.

With less enthusiasm for credit cards and debt, retail analysts believe Black Friday activity will not reach last year’s numbers, although 2014 Black Friday sales constituted a sharp disappointment. The busiest hour is expected to be between 6pm and 7pm.

“Holiday shopping is a huge investment, and consumers get more sophisticated every year with their online and mobile shopping in order to secure the most popular gifts at the best prices”, Tamara Gaffney, principal research analyst of Adobe’s Digital Index, said in a press release.

The Braehead shopping centre in Glasgow saw a minimal increase in footfall, with only Currys PC World welcoming customers early for the festive rush. The business has been running offers since Monday and has seen seven million guests to its site as of now this week.

As Cyber Monday illustrates, “there’s not a conversation about retail today without talking about digital”, Berry said.

The Mall Blackburn was ready for a 12-hour Black Friday bonanza with retailers offering up to 70 per cent off in store.

Independent website DownDetector.uk, which detects “when services go down or have outages”, has reported a spike in the number of people complaining about outages on parts of the Argos.co.uk website. However, Stead believes that many retailers have heeded warnings from the chaos that followed last year’s spike in demand and spread promotions over a week rather than one day.

But there was still evidence of consumer enthusiasm with one shopper revealing she had spent £300 online on a Playstation and four games before heading to Tesco with her partner, with a plan to on from there to Argos.

She said: “I haven’t been to sleep, I’ve been up all night shopping”. It was from a store I shop regularly, so I felt confident about my purchase. If you are planning to fearless the cold and the crowds this year, here are the top stores with the biggest savings, according to a recent study. “And if they see a really good deal on Friday they’re going to pounce on it online on Friday”.

No-one, aside from journalists, turned up to Boots’ flagship store on Oxford Street as its doors opened at midnight.

The duty manager said people were mostly after the Black Friday deals on electrical items.