Peter Jenkinson: Go online to spare yourself Black Friday pain

Black Friday signage at the Edinburgh branch of John Lewis last year. Picture: Scott Louden

Black Friday has crept into our subconscious these past few years and become an important part of the shopping calendar. This year it’ll take place on November 27 and is looking to top the whopping £820 million in online sales it managed last year.

There seems little need to be part of the high street crush when you could take to the online tills and not risk the wrath of over-keen in-store shoppers, who last year made the news for all the wrong reasons. We’ve also adopted Cyber Monday from across the pond too. A purely online affair, it managed to rake in £720 million in online sales, pushing this cash-saving exercise to well over £1 billion in just a few years - it’s quite staggering.

The retailer responsible for getting us to pack all our shopping into a single weekend has its very own Black Friday landing page, just search for it via the amazon.co.uk home page. They’ve already put up some enticing offers that are available now to whet your appetite.

Argos is taking a slightly different approach and having red, white and blue Fridays ahead of the 27th, saying that shopping concentrated into one weekend is stressful enough, and so, offering us a soothing saving every Friday. Whilst a great marketing idea, it’s difficult to see how they won’t be getting involved in the big event itself too, but it’s still well worth a look at their offering.

John Lewis, Halfords, very.co.uk, Apple, Asos, Boots, British Airways, Carphone Warehouse, eBay, Game, House of Fraser, Lakeland, Maplin, Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s, Superdrug and Tesco were all involved in 2014 and widely expected to join in this year too. Asda however, the retailer that sold 8,000 TV sets in the first hour of Black Friday last year and became widely recognised for the stampeding shoppers, has declined to be part of the big savings party this time around.

Remember, the savvy shopper should come armed with a plan of what they want before wading into the sales, especially if they’re going to brave the high street.