Argos and Amazon among retailers to offer huge discounts next Friday, while Visa Europe estimates that £360,000 will be spent every minute on its cards during the UK's busiest online shopping day, Black Friday.
A report by Visa Europe predicts that consumers will spend £1m every three minutes, equating to £6,000 every second, on its credit and debit cards, as UK shoppers take advantage of retail promotions. It forecasts Black Friday will see 8.5m online transactions, up 22% on last year, with shopping peaking between the hours of 7pm and 8pm.

Black Friday signals the start of the Christmas shopping season, originating in America as the day after Thanksgiving, with major retailers opening extremely early and offering promotional discounts.

More recently, the concept of Black Friday has been promoted to the UK by major online retailers like Amazon and Apple. In 2013 Asda , owned by the American Wal-Mart chain, announced a Black Friday campaign, while this year Argos has a countdown to November 28 on its website and announces it will be "holding a huge sale on stock from our ranges of tech, toys, TV and more".

John Lewis is also getting in on the act, announcing, "If our competitors have a sale, we have a sale". As part of its commitment to its Never Knowingly Undersold promise, it will match the prices of its competitors on the day. The retailer will also open its stores early, from 8am.

Not to be outdone, Amazon is offering a Black Friday week of deals, kicking off on Monday, November 24, with new deals every day in the countdown to the main event. Customers are even able to sign up to a newsletter alerting them to new deals before anyone else.