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Black Friday Sales Frenzy Shifts Online

There has been no repeat of the in-store chaos witnessed on Black Friday last year, with bargain-hunters shifting their business online instead today.

Some keen consumers braved damp and cold weather to form queues outside a number of stores across the UK from early in the morning but a number of high streets and shopping centres were deserted.

Many were instead turning to the web for bargains, with online shoppers expected to spend more than £1bn in a day for the first time.

Retailers were reporting brisk business over the web - with some sites struggling to handle the volume of customers.

The John Lewis site was unavailable for a time mid-afternoon, with the chain blaming "record" demand.

The monitoring service Capacitas estimated the failure could have cost the chain £2.8m in lost revenue.

It was not the only site to suffer problems.

Some retailers imposed access queues to ensure their systems could handle the traffic.

Argos customers took to Twitter to complain about waits and delays to order confirmations.

Some users were faced with an on-screen wait countdown with a message telling them: "Sorry for the delay. Demand for this part of the site is really high."

Nevertheless, Argos reported peak orders of 1,000 per minute.

Other chains to feel criticism on site speeds via social media included Boohoo, Tesco and Boots.

Currys PC World said five purchases a second were made on its website at the height of the rush - with large TVs shifting at a rate of 100 per minute.

Many retailers decided to stretch Black Friday discounts online over several days to try and prevent a sprint for discounts.

There were no reports of serious trouble in stores this year.

At the Tesco Extra in Burnley - which last year saw chaos as shoppers grappled for electrical bargains - there were more civilised scenes as shoppers were urged to remain calm before entering the store and warned there must be "no abuse or violence".

But there was still evidence of consumer enthusiasm with one shopper revealing she had spent £300 online on a Playstation and four games before heading to Tesco with her partner, with a plan to move on from there to Argos.

She said: "I haven't been to sleep. I've been up all night shopping. I had the laptop, tablet and mobiles on looking for bargains. We are just greedy."

Asda had previously said it was not taking part in the Black Friday discount day but later announced it was knocking 4p a litre off unleaded petrol for three days to take the price below £1 for the first time since 2009.