Cyber Monday set to rival Black Friday as Britain’s biggest shopping day
Yesterday’s retail frenzy looked set to rival Black Friday as Britain’s biggest shopping day as around 21.5 million people headed online to snap up bargains.
Experts predicted that consumers could spend £7.8 billion over the four-day period including Cyber Monday, up 7 per cent on last year.
Vouchercodes and the Cen- tre for Retail Research (CRR) said that Cyber Monday could overtake Black Friday by £7 million to become the biggest day for online and offline spending this year.
Britons were expected to spend £2.6bn on Black Friday – an 8 per cent increase overall on last year.
However, separate figures showed that footfall across UK high streets, shopping centres and out of town retail parks was down 1.1 per cent between Friday and Sunday, with footfall on Black Friday itself dropping by 3.6 per cent compared to last year.
The latest data report from retail intelligence experts Springboard, said the the impact of retailers spreading out offers over the week leading up to Black Friday, when footfall rose by 1.3 per cent annually.
Diane Wehrle, Insights Director at Springboard, said: “Black Friday bargains, with many offers stretched across the week, delivered an increase of 4.9 per cent against the previous week across all locations.”
Cyber Monday has traditionally been a strictly 24-hour event, and online only – rather than in stores and online on Black Friday – but has evolved over recent years into a more extended period.
A survey by PWC estimated that online was overtaking instore shopping on Black Friday in every age group. Even 60 per cent of over-65s planned on chasing bargains online instead of in-store, with the under-25s doing just 25 per cent in store.
However, ecommerce trends experts PCA Predict claimed that online shopping sales were down 3 per cent from last year in the first eleven hours of the shopping frenzy. An analysis said that between 12am and 11am, the trend mirrored Black Friday last week.