Pic: Credit: Wikipedia Commons

Since 2014, Britain has adopted the American trend, Black Friday. With online and in-store deals, this year £2.6 Billion is expected to be spent, slightly more than last years £2.4 Billion record, Nicola Coaker reports

This total, works out to around £1.8 Million per minute, as predicted by VoucherCodes and the Centre for Retail Research (CRR). Although Cyber Monday is upon us, £1.5 Billion is expected to be spent on Black Friday alone with retailers such as Argos and John Lewis making records on the amount of sales.

Although Black Friday isn’t till next week, on 24th November, many retailers have already started promotions including 20% off and 50% off.

Eleanor Parr, a retail analyst at GlobalData, said electrical sales were expected to continue to dominate Black Friday promotions, although year-on-year growth is forecast to slow to 3% due to inflation in the market discouraging spending.

She said: “Increased cost prices will mean retailers are unable to offer the level of discounts advertised in 2016, meaning demand may waver as consumers feel less inclined to make bargain purchases on impulse.”

Consumer group Which? warned shoppers against assuming that Black Friday prices are automatically the biggest discount, noting that it had “often seen past discounts that were not quite as good as retailers made them sound”.

Shoppers are urged to do their research before spending their money, this will allow them to get genuine bargains and know about any unexpected added charges including delivery and returns policies.