Quiet Black Friday As Sales Shift Online

Shops saw a slow start to Black Friday today with no sign of a repeat of the chaotic scenes last year when bargain hunters battled for the best deals.

Some keen consumers braved damp and cold weather to form queues outside a number of stores across the UK from early in the morning but a number of high streets and shopping centres were deserted.

Many were instead turning to the web for bargains, with online shoppers expected to spend £1bn in a day for the first time.

Independent retail analyst Nick Bubb said: "It (Other OTC: ITGL - news) looks as if Black Friday spending has been more spread out this year and more weighted to online, but every indication is that the combined event will be bigger than last year."

Internet spending today will hit £1.07bn - a 32% increase on last year's £810m, according to Experian (Other OTC: EXPGF - news) -IMRG.

The Centre for Retail Research anticipates total Black Friday sales, including at high street stores, will reach £1.39bn - and climb to £3.49bn with the proceeds from the weekend and Cyber Monday.

In stores, Visa (Xetra: A0NC7B - news) expects spending on its cards alone to reach £1.19bn, up 4% on last year. It forecasts a peak in trading between 1pm and 2pm. Online, Visa expects a sharper rise, of 17%, to £721m. The busiest hour is expected to be between 6pm and 7pm.

Retailers made cut-price deals available online from midnight and many spent the night preparing to open their doors early.

Online store Very said that by 9am it was ahead of last year with half a million users on the site so far, and that it was shaping up for its biggest day ever - as hair curlers and games consoles flew off its virtual shelves.

Currys PC World saw a 53% increase in hourly web traffic on last year. It said it was seeing eight sales per second and 30 televisions per minute selling online.

The business has been running offers since Monday and has seen seven million visitors to its site already this week. It has more offers today with most continuing over the weekend until "Cyber Monday".

Amazon, Argos and Marks & Spencer (Other OTC: MAKSF - news) have also stretched Black Friday discounts over several days. Argos denied that its website had crashed after reports of problems. It said it had a queuing system in place.

Some users were faced with an on-screen wait countdown with a message telling them: "Sorry for the delay. Demand for this part of the site is really high."

Meanwhile, at the Tesco Extra store in Burnley - which last year saw chaos as shoppers grappled for electrical bargains - there were more civilised scenes as shoppers were urged to remain calm before entering the store and warned there must be "no abuse or violence".

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 (Xetra: 852647 - news) with her partner, with a plan to on from there to Argos.

She (Munich: SOQ.MU - news) said: "I haven't been to sleep. I've been up all night shopping. I had the laptop, tablet and mobiles on looking for bargains. We are just greedy."

Tesco's 250 large Tesco Extra stores opened earlier than normal at 5am with moderate crowds gathering outside some.

A spokesman for Tesco, Britain's biggest retailer, said: "We're really happy with how it's going so far. What you haven't seen is the big crazy crushes. It's going really well online."

In London, no consumers turned up for the midnight opening of Boots' flagship Oxford Street store.

At the Westfield (Other OTC: WEFIF - news) shopping centre in Stratford, east London, trading was said to be brisk rather than frenzied.

Asda has previously said it is not taking part in the Black Friday discount day but announced it was knocking 4p a litre off unleaded petrol for three days to take the price below £1 for the first time since 2009.