United Kingdom retailers set for Black Friday sales record

After last Christmas, the bosses of retailers, including John Lewis, Britain’s biggest department store, and Argos owner Home Retail questioned the wisdom of concentrating so much business on Black Friday and suggested diluting the event.

Participating Tesco Extra shops in Milton Keynes will close at midnight on Thursday and reopen them at 5am for the event – including Kingston and Bletchley stores.

The regulations, put in place after last years fiasco, didn’t go down too well with some shoppers.

If you’re more into LG rather than Samsung, then you can get the 49-inch LG Electronics LED TV (2015 Model) for $252, which is 39% less than the regular price of $649.99.

However, last year’s event caused long queues and sparked brawls in stores as shoppers fought over bargains.

It was estimated that the website problems would equate to a £4.33m loss against the predicted £1.07bn Black Friday revenue across the UK.

Consumers could be about to spend their way to the UK’s first £1 billion online shopping day as retailers brace themselves for Black Friday. “You really have to come in the store to get it. But I was happy I did”, she said.

Online retailers are reporting record-breaking sales from the first few hours of the bonanza making it likely that online retail sales in the United Kingdom will surpass £1 billion in one day. He noted the mall was less crowded than he expected.

Bargain hunters found relatively little competition compared with previous years. “I just assumed it was some marketing ploy by shops to get rid of lousy, unwanted items before Christmas”.

There will be others who have made the same choice, while several retailers have attempted to spread Black Friday out by beginning deals early.

Retailers have been bombarding registered shoppers with emails detailing deals today ahead of them becoming available from midnight, while many stores are preparing to open their doors early.

Shoppers at Tesco Extra in Cradley Heath, West Midlands, saw no repeat of last year’s chaotic scenes after being issued with tickets to enter the Black Friday section of the store.

“We believe Thanksgiving shopping was a bust”, analysts at Suntrust Robinson Humphrey said in a research note. And those who don’t go shopping on this day tend to mock those who do. He said some stores saw a fair amount of activity around orders that were placed online and picked up in stores. In Middleton, in Greater Manchester, 200 shoppers barricaded themselves in a Tesco store demanding the promised sale goods, even after all the stock had been depleted. “A serious outage two years in a row could be embarrassing”.

“I shopped online yesterday and picked up most of what I wanted”, she said”.

While everybody loves a bargain, Joel is warning customers to watch out that they don’t scrimp on quality amidst the Black Friday frenzy. WalletHub analysts surveyed 8,000 deals from 30 of the biggest US retailers’ Black Friday ads to find out which companies offered the largest advertised discounts for each product category.

Currys PC World is expecting such a surge of interest on Black Friday it’s inviting customers to register their interest weeks in advance.

But, with 9% of shoppers admitting they are anxious they will spend more than they can afford at the sales – 19.4% of those aged between 18 and 34 – experts have warned people to be careful.

The shopping season spanning November and December is crucial for many retailers because the two months can account for anywhere from 20 to 40 percent of their annual sales.