As the UK counts down the final few hours to the start of Black Friday – the busiest online shopping day of the year – Argos has announced it will officially start the big day three hours early at 21.00.
Whereas in previous years, Argos has launched its biggest and best Black Friday deals just after midnight on the Friday itself, this year customers can get their hands on the top tier bargains early, with the deals launching at argos.co.uk tonight.
Mark Steel, Digital Director at Argos, said: “Last year we saw enormous volumes of traffic on our website and Argos apps during the Thursday evening before Black Friday as customers started to hunt for the big bargains.
“This told us there was a clear appetite from our customers to snap up deals that evening and that’s why we’ve decided to launch three hours early this year. This also means really dedicated bargain-hunters won’t have to burn the candle and stay up into the small hours to get the biggest deals, as they have in previous years.”
Last year Argos saw around half a million visits per hour from 16:00 onwards on the Thursday before Black Friday.
Argos’s 14-day Black Friday deal bonanza kicked off on Wednesday 15 November and runs all the way through to Tuesday 28 November, with fantastic deals from big brands such as Dyson, LG, Google, Philips, FitBit, Samsung and Go-Pro.
To combat the shopping-stress factor and ensure that everyone remains ‘paw-sitive’, Argos is hosting a kitten video channel exclusively on its website for Black Friday. The kitten-themed stream which also launches tonight at 21:00, will run throughout the shopping period.
Feline enthusiasts and shoppers alike will be able to spend a moment in utter tranquility watching the cute kittens play, snuggle and sleep, all day long, simply by clicking a button on the Argos website homepage.
This Black Friday, Argos is also making life easier for customers with its Fast Track Collection service, which allows customers to pre-pay online and collect their Black Friday deal from any store up to seven days afterwards, avoiding the crowds.
To help shoppers who decide to venture to the high street, Argos has drafted in 10,000 additional store colleagues and around 3,000 Fast Track home delivery drivers, using 950 delivery vans, will be operating on Black Friday.
Argos.co.uk is the UK’s third most visited website, with around a billion hits a year. More than half of Argos sales originate online and around 120 million customer transactions take place in stores each year. Its market-leading sameday Fast Track delivery service is available across more than 90% of UK postcodes, seven days a week, and Fast Track Collection offers free-of-charge pick up from any store in as little as 60 seconds.
Argos is part of the Sainsbury’s Group, one of the UK’s biggest retailers of food, general merchandise, clothing and financial services through the Sainsbury’s, Argos and Habitat brands. J Sainsbury plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange.