UK shops braced for Black Friday frenzy

UK retailers are gearing up for a US-style “Black Friday” shopping frenzy, with experts predicting thousands of bargain hunters will descend on high streets in search of cut-price TVs, tablets and toys.

The 24-hour sales bonanza imported from the US has become big business in the UK, with store bosses predicting that sales rung up on Friday will be double those of last year.

Visa Europe expects spending of £518m on its cards. The unprecedented spending spree will kick-start Christmas shopping as some of the high street’s biggest names including John Lewis, Asda, Currys and Argos launch thousands of deals online and in store.

The discounts have been heavily publicised by retailers in the runup to Friday and many will be available online just after midnight. Some stores are also opening their doors to nighttime shoppers. Tesco’s larger superstores are opening at a minute past midnight, while the entertainment retailer Game will invite shoppers in a minute before midnight for three hours of nocturnal shopping. All John Lewis stores will open at 8am but its flagship Oxford Street store in central London will trade until 10pm – the longest trading day in its 150-year history.

Retail intelligence experts Springboard said the number of shoppers on UK high streets, shopping centres and retail parks will leap by nearly 10% on Friday and continue over the weekend, before Cyber Monday on 1 December, which is traditionally the biggest day of the year for online sales. Footfall on the streets on Monday is also expected to edge up, driven primarily by the surging popularity of “click and collect” services, used by 90% of online shoppers.

Diane Wehrle, retail director at Springboard, said: “Last year we saw a marked increase in shopping footfall due to Black Friday coming just after the last payday. This year, the timing is just as good for retailers but this November it comes during a period of even better consumer confidence.”

Black Friday, which follows the Thanksgiving holiday, is a massive sales tradition in the US . It was said to be the day that American retailers began earning profits each year, crossing from the red into the black.

In 2010 Amazon introduced Black Friday discounts to Britain and last year other high street retailers followed suit. This year, the phenomenon has engulfed the whole sector, with Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Marks and Spencer among those looking for a slice of what has in effect become the new Boxing Day sales.

Walmart-owned Asda has doubled its Black Friday range, boosting the number of products on offer from half a million to 700,000 and rolling the event out to 100 more stores across the country – a total of 441.

Its bargains will include 40-in LED TVs at just £139. Last year it was caught out by the frenzied response to offers such as cut-price 60-in TVs, with the day overshadowed by fights among shoppers scrabbling for a finite amount of stock.

John Roberts of the white goods and electricals discount chain AO.com, said: “We think this Friday will be the single biggest day of sales of the year.” More retailers were taking part as many Britons were still spending carefully and stores bosses knew it was an opportunity they could not miss. If you are trying to sell stuff four days after Black Friday a lot of consumers will have already bought it.”

Staff at Amazon have been working flat out in its UK warehouses as orders pour in during its Black Friday deals week to its Peterborough fulfilment centre in Cambridgeshire. The shopping website is predicting this will be its busiest week of the year, with at least 4m items expected to be ordered.

But one retail expert warned that shoppers would be the only winners on Black Friday, with retailers ultimately set to lose out as a result of reduced profit margins. Prof Chris Edger of Birmingham Business School said: “Black Friday has turned into a ‘retail squid’, with customer offers spreading throughout the month, sucking all margin out of November trading. The result will have grave consequences for profitability over the longer term for some retail players.”