Sale shoppers 'set to spend £3bn'

26 December 2012 Last updated at 00:11 ET

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The BBC's Sophie van Brugen reports from Westfield, London, where shoppers queued throughout the night

British shoppers are expected to spend almost £3bn in the Boxing Day sales, experts have predicted.

Millions of bargain-hunters are set to descend on High Streets and shopping centres across the UK.

Shops began cutting prices and opening as early as 06:00 GMT in a bid to tempt customers in.

Market analyst Experian says online spending is expected to be the "biggest and busiest ever", accounting for almost £500m on Boxing Day.

Tube strike

Amazon UK said it had seen sales on Christmas Day increase by 263% over the last five years.

This was partly due to the growth in home broadband and the popularity of tablets and smartphones.

MoneySupermarket.com said shoppers were set to spend £2.9bn in the Boxing Day sales.

A survey for the website found that four million people plan to head to the stores, as well as five million who will shop online.

However, there could be problems for shoppers in London because of a strike by Tube drivers - although extra buses will be provided to the West End and the Westfield shopping centres in Stratford and White City.

Experian said visits to retail websites were expected to reach 126 million on Boxing Day, an increase of 31% on last year.

James Murray, from Experian, said: "Christmas 2012 is on track to be another record-breaker for online retail, outstripping 2011 on all fronts.

"The current market trends suggest that in the UK, Boxing Day will be the biggest day for online retail, with an estimated 126 million visits to online retail outlets and a massive 17 million hours spent online shopping on this day alone."

But comparison website Pricerunner said figures suggested that almost half people asked were not planning on buying anything in the sales.

Business failures

The British Retail Consortium (BRC) said Christmas spending in shops this year was "acceptable but not exceptional".

BRC spokesman Richard Dodd said poor accessibility on high streets, lack of parking and weak consumer demand were more of a threat than an increase in online shopping.

He said some High Street retailers would "undoubtedly" fail after Christmas.

"Retail sales over the weekend have been up to expectations but expectations were relatively modest. Christmas will turn out to be acceptable but not exceptional," he said.

"There are a lot of myths around online retail. Ten per cent of overall retailing over the year comes from online shopping and actually it presents lots of opportunities for the retail sector."

But business recovery group Begbies Traynor warned that High Street retailers faced the threat of closure as more people shopped online.

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