Black Friday marks the beginning of the Christmas season when thrifty shoppers will spend billions of pounds in an attempt to snatch up the best of the cut-price products on offer.

The 2015 event saw Britons collectively spend £2bn in shops and online in the 24-hour period, and £3.3bn over the entire four-day weekend.

By 9.10pm, Black Friday had already become Amazon’s biggest sales day ever in the UK, with more than six million items ordered.

For Amazon, which brought the trend to the UK, Black Friday 2015 surpassed all expectations with 7.4 million items ordered — around 86 items per second. The online giant offered thousands of Lightning Deals, discounted products available for a limited period of time, with new deals added every 10 minutes.