Predictions for Black Friday 2016 roll in

Wednesday, November 2, 2016 - 10:15 by Sarah Collinson

Black Friday is drawing near once more and new figures published by Adobe reveal that it could be 10 per cent bigger in terms of sales than it was in 2015, according to Tech Radar.

British shoppers are forecast to splash out a combined £24.3 billion, of which around a fifth will be generated by sales made solely from mobile devices. This epitomises the rise of the trend for safe shopping online on smartphones and tablets which has continued to gather pace throughout 2016 so far.

Report spokesperson, John Watton, said that although Black Friday has been a major event in the UK for only the past three years, it has made a significant impact on consumer spending habits and shifted the way in which people buy presents for the festive season.

He explained that retailers would need to prepare for an influx of shoppers to their e-commerce sites on the day itself, with mobile use expected to be especially prevalent, making optimisation essential.

Furthermore, expectations among web-savvy shoppers are higher than ever, meaning that if sites fail to meet them they could easily lose business to rivals with slicker, more intuitive sites.

Interestingly, the report goes on to predict that December 25th will actually be the single biggest day of the year for mobile-fuelled sales, driven by the fact that most shops will be closed and people will be using their handsets to carry out safe shopping online while they spend time with their families.

Christmas Day could outrank Black Friday by up to a third in terms of mobile sales, so even with the major promotions being pushed by retailers later this month, it will be hard to topple the heart of the festive season from the top of the sales charts.