Black Friday £2million-a-minute spending spree as shoppers QUEUE to go on Currys and Boots websites and PayPal crashes
BLACK Friday shoppers are QUEUING to get onto websites including Currys PC World, Boots and Cult Beauty in a record £2million-a-minute spending spree.
Websites struggled under the traffic from England's first-ever online-only Black Friday, while a PayPal outage means customers in the UK and USA are unable to access accounts or make payments.
⚠️ Read our Black Friday 2020 live blog for the latest deals, news & updates
- Here are the best Black Friday deals so far
Thousands of customers have been queuing to get on Boots and Cult Beauty's websites, while others struggled to get onto Curry's PC World.
Lego fans have also been complaining on social media about large queues to enter the Black Friday sale on its website.
The popular Nintendo Switch console sold out in minutes on Aldi when it went live last night.
While other bargain hunters rushed to snap up stock when it was sold eBay.
The rush for the Nintendo Switch came after the console was discounted from £279.99 to £229.99.
Experts blame shops' lockdown causing a huge spike in web demand across Black Friday sales as a whole - 70% bigger than last year's Black Friday.
Nationwide has reported 2.3million transactions already, as of lunchtime today, while eBay said it has sold two items every second.
It comes after last week's launch of PlayStation5 – just one product – saw Currys forced to implement a queue to access its website, and John Lewis, Tesco and GAME's websites would not load.
But it was a different picture for physical stores in England, with pictures showing Lakeside shopping centre empty on Black Friday. The shopping centre is partially open, with only essential retailers open.
However, shoppers have been seen queuing outside Primark in Cardiff, where non-essential shops are allowed to stay open.
Today's £1.93billion web blowout works out at £2.01m-a-minute over the 16 hours most people are awake.
Nationwide has reported 2.3million transactions already, as of lunchtime today, while eBay said it has sold two items every second.
Over the entire weekend, shoppers are expected to splash £7.5billion online and on the high street.
It comes as this year's Black Friday sales started earlier than ever before with some experts renaming this month “Black November”.
Amazon was one of the first to start its sales, having launched its deals one month ago.
But several retailers have ditched the sales bonanza altogether this year, including B&M, Next, M&S and Wilko, in an attempt to stop crowds.
CHECK FOR CODES Take a look at The Sun Vouchers, and see if you can get extra savings with discount codes.
- logs the history of how much something costs from over 3,000 different retailers, including Argos, Amazon, eBay and the supermarkets. Once you select an individual product you can quickly compare which stores have the best price and which have it in stock.
- is another website that lets you compare prices between retailers. All shoppers need to do is search for the item they need and the website will rank them from the cheapest to the most expensive one.
- only works on goods being sold on Amazon. To use it, type in the URL of the product you want to check the price of.
However, analysts at EY said that early Christmas shopping and restrictions have impacted the importance of the sales event.
Silvia Rindone, EY UK & Ireland retail partner, said: "Once a big event for the retail industry, the reality is that Black Friday's significance has diminished.
"This year, retailers have brought offers forward due to the national restrictions put in place earlier this month so it's unlikely there will be significant new discounts this week.
"Now, retailers need to look beyond festive deals in order to aim for recovery and a positive start to 2021.
"What would have been a 10-year transition from physical to online sales has happened in less than a year, and retailers need to understand and adapt to likely permanent shifts in consumer behaviour."
It comes on the same day that Philip Green's TopShop empire Arcadia is said to be facing administration in the coming days.
Keep an eye on our Black Friday page where we'll be updating you with the best bargains today, tomorrow and over the weekend.
READ MORE SUN STORIES
Plus, here are our tips on how to beat bad bargains with out top tips and tools.
We've previously revealed how prices could be cheaper before Black Friday.