Brits hit the keyboard to bag themselves a bargain

Estimates suggest that around £7.8bn will have been spent over the weekend

Canny shoppers across the UK looked to have splurged millions of pounds online last night as the US-inspired Cyber Monday drew to a close.

Internet retailers already buoyed by a decent showing over the so-called Black Friday weekend were expected to take full advantage of people surfing sites before midnight in search of a bargain or two in time for Christmas.

Experts predicted that a massive 21.5 million people would take advantage of reduced prices throughout the 24-hour Cyber Monday period – a day of deals which started life in the United States.

Indeed, figures estimated that yesterday was likely to overtake Black Friday sales, with around £7.8 billion expected to have been spent over the four-day period including Cyber Monday by close of play last night.

Adobe said it was too early to say what the impact of Cyber Monday had been, but stressed that most people were expected to take to the internet at night – just hours before most of the deals were due to expire.

Tamara Gaffney, strategic insights engagement group director for Adobe, said: “If you look at the hourly peak times for Cyber Monday shopping, they come between 8pm and 11pm in each time zone.

“They know that by Monday night it’s not going any lower and if they wait until Tuesday the deals will be gone.

“So that’s when they hit the button.”

With Christmas just around the corner, most of the popular Cyber Monday deals were on toys, computers and TVs.

Various big name retailers embraced the Cyber Monday phenomenon, such as Amazon, John Lewis, Argos and ‘buy’ Next, with all aiming to build success of Black Friday itself.

Despite apparent dips in footfall in many towns and cities on Friday, Barclaycard, which processes nearly half of all debit and credit card transactions in the UK, estimated that Black Friday spending still finished 8% up on 2016, while John Lewis described it as “one of its most successful days” ever.

They know that by Monday night it’s not going any lower and if they wait until Tuesday the deals will be gone. TAMARA GAFFNEY

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Picture: Getty. Staff at Amazon’s fulfilment centres were busy as people took advantage of the deals on offer.