Today is Black Friday - which is arguably the biggest shopping day on the British calendar. With stores such as Argos and Tesco opening at an earlier than usual time of 5am to accommodate the mad rush, whilst other consumers have been swooping on cut-price deals on Amazon, Play.com and many others.

It is expected that not all deliveries will be carried out on time, given in 2015 the websites of Boots, Argos and John Lewis report IT crashed, thus having an effect on orders going through successfully.

Never been a better time

Ahead of an expected rise in shop prices in 2017 due to inflation, coupled with the fall in the pound, there has never been a better time to indulge in the madness.

Doug Gurr, UK country manager for Amazon, said: "In response to positive customer feedback for Black Friday deals, we are introducing the Black Friday sale, which is 12 days of fantastic deals on must-have gifts and products, saving our customer millions of pounds.

""We're also thrilled to have over 1,000 small businesses featuring in our Black Friday sale, broadening the selection for our customers and enabling those businesses to boost their sales in the run-up to Christmas."

Black Friday deals

Standout deals on offer today include ghd V Gold styling set which includes a hair dryer, straighteners and designer styling products. It was £234.90 but has now come down to £139.99. Another fantastic deal is the GoPro HERO session TM Bonus Bundle Action Camera which was gone from £200.47 to £149.00.

Justin Opie, managing director at IMRG, said: "Black Friday as an event has shown a remarkable capacity for evolving each year and it seems set to change further this year".

Not all stores are happy to get involved with Black Friday, with Asda and Next refusing to participate, citing previous chaotic scenes amongst shoppers proving to not be worth the risk.

With Cyber Monday a mere few days away, the amount shoppers are expected to splash out on goods is expected to hit at £4bn across the UK. Considering there is still plenty more Christmas shopping to be had, retail stores across Britain have reason to be happy this year.