Black Friday weekend online sales hit £3.3bn, says IMRG/Experian

On Black Friday itself a record £1.1bn of ecommerce purchases were made, up 36% on 2014.

Amazon reported its biggest-ever sales day on Friday as 6 million items were ordered. Shop Direct also reported its largest trading day with sales up 36% year on year.

On Saturday online retail sales hit £561m, while on Sunday sales totalled £676m.

Yesterday on Cyber Monday sales jumped 31% year on year to £968, IMRG and Experian reported.

The sales bonanza this year saw consumers turning away from physical stores and embracing online shopping. Footfall fell 9.6% year on year over the weekend, according to analysts Springboard.

IMRG’s editor Andy Mulcahy told Retail Week: “The idea of Black Friday as a single day has gone. Extending the period out has been a success for retailers and things have run more efficiently.”

Looking ahead, he said the challenge will be how retailers run their multichannel offer. Mulcahy said retailers will have to weigh up whether it will be worth opening early to pay staff, if only a small number of shoppers would be turning up for deals.

But he added: “It’s such an explosive event, it’s difficult to know what will happen next.”