Black Friday Smashes £1.4 BILLION as Online Shopping Triumphs

• Black Friday spending was greater than ever
• Online shopping overtook high street spending
• Over 160 retailers took part in Black Friday

This year, Black Friday has broken records and expectations for spending.

Early figures from the online retailers trade body IMRG show that online spending was over £1.4 billion on the day, an increase of 11.7% on last year.

This broke their prediction of online spending reaching £1.15 billion.

The numbers of retailers offering Black Friday deals also increased this year, with companies like Next joining in for the first time.

Over 160 retailers had Black Friday specific sales, and another 10 also had sales that weren’t specifically for Black Friday on the 24th November.

Of this online spending, 39% was done on smartphones, as brands like Amazon and Argos launched their own Black Friday apps to make spending easier for shoppers.

Online shopping also overtook high street spending this year.

On Black Friday, high streets were described as “Ghost Towns”, and were deserted compared to scenes from previous years.

IMRG has already seen a growth in online shopping compared to high streets, but said that this is emphasised during sales times.

IMRG’s strategy and insight director, Andy Mulchay, said “People shop in a lot more places than they would normally at sales time. They know everyone is offering massive discounts, so they’re inclined to look around more to find the best deals. Online shopping lends itself well to that.”

Retail giant John Lewis broke their 2016 record of sales on Black Friday.

Sales at the department store rose 7.2% on their sales last year, with the total sales during the week of Black Friday hitting £214.3 million.

Argos, who began their Black Friday savings on Thursday evening, is an example of the surge in online spending.

It reported a record number of visits online, with more than 800,000 people visiting the site in the first hour, and two million visits in the first four hours.

Tech company GAME also had a surge of online spending. It's site crashed only minutes after opening its official savings event due to the heavy flow of traffic.