BLACK Friday is on its way to becoming the biggest online shopping day in UK history as shopping centres and stores avoided the mayhem of last year’s event.
Online retailers reported record-breaking sales from the first few hours of the bonanza making it likely that online retail sales in the UK will surpass £1 billion in one day.
Spending online was predicted to hit £1.07 billion, a 32 per cent increase on last year’s £810 million, according to analyst Experian-IMRG.
However, there was relief from the scuffles of last year’s discount event which saw police called to some Scots stores.
About 60 bargain hunters, some in pyjamas and dressing gowns, queued for more than an hour at Tesco Extra in Silverburn, Glasgow, which had closed between midnight and 5am yesterday to prepare.
Staff gave out tickets on arrival and allowed only 10 people in at a time to avoid any disturbances of the previous year which forced the store to close for a time.
Staff at the intu Braehead shopping mall, near Glasgow, gave out free cups of tea and coffee to shoppers who had been queuing outside from 5.30am.
Shopper Eddie Mason, 55, of Linwood, Renfrewshire said: “I’ve been looking to buy a television for a wee while, but I thought I would wait until Black Friday to get the best deal.
“I got a 48-inch TV and saved £120, so I’m happy.”
It wasn’t all cheer online though, as many leading retail websites crashed or slowed down.
Argos consumers were confronted with an apologetic holding page after its web page load times exceeded 10 seconds, in stark contrast to the 0.5 second page load time of online retail giant Amazon.
Many consumers will give up on trying to make a purchase with an online retailer if they had to wait more than two-seconds.
One frustrated Argos user tweeted: “Shouldn’t advertise doing Black Friday if your website can’t handle it. Trying to pay and keeps crashing.”
Multiple errors on the Tesco website have also been reported.
very.co.uk said it had more than half a million users visit its site by 9am having launched sales at midnight, with a surge in traffic at 7am when its hourly deals went live.
Guy Anker, managing editor of Moneysavingexpert.com, said: “The benefit of shopping online is it’s so much easier to compare deals with a few clicks so they know whether the price after that 20 per cent discount really is the cheapest on the market.”
Meanwhile, Edinburgh-based Sam Machin launched an online campaign to encourage people not to buy anything and instead hug a friend or ring their parents yesterday.
And thousands of people signed up to an Buy Nothing Friday counter-consumer campaign.
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