J Sainsbury : Record number of visits to Argos website as Black Friday bonanza kicks off three hours early

More than 800,000 people visited Argos's online channels between 21:00 and 22:00 last night, more than 13,000 customers every minute, smashing last year's record for peak visits. Customers are increasingly choosing to shop by mobile phone as 84% of those visits came from mobile devices.

Tech and gaming products are proving popular again this year, with video games consoles, games, tablets and TVs featuring in the top ten best sellers so far.

How Black Friday has shaped up for Argos so far:

• Over two million visits to the website in the first four hours
• Peak hour hit a new record between 21.00 and 22.00 on Thursday
• 84% of customers shopped via a mobile device
• Fast Track Collection Orders were up 52% vs same period in 2016

Top 10 selling lines and prices:

John Rogers, Argos CEO, said: 'These early record-breaking figures show that savvy shoppers are keen to bag themselves a bargain in the run-up to Christmas. People are clearly buying their big Christmas presents, as we've seen a real spike in sales of video games and consoles as well as iPads and TVs. Fast Track Collection is proving popular and we have 10,000 extra colleagues in our stores today to help people when they come in to collect their orders.'

Argos has recruited an additional 10,000 seasonal workers to help serve millions of customers in its stores over the festive period. On Black Friday itself, they will be joined by hundreds of head office workers helping out on the shop floor.

Argos has more than 800 stores across the UK and Republic of Ireland, which includes approximately 150 Argos stores within Sainsbury's supermarkets and around 200 digital collection points in Sainsbury's stores.

Argos's Fast Track delivery service offers customers same-day home delivery in as little as four hours for just £3.95, covering more than 90% of the country. On Black Friday, same-day Fast Track delivery slots will be offered to customers on a first-come, first-served basis with subsequent days' slots offered once Black Friday's delivery schedules are full.

Some figures from 2016:

Last year savvy shoppers were ready to snap up bargains as soon as deals went live at midnight - with half a million visits to Argos's digital channels between midnight and 1am, equating to 8,000 visits per minute. Tech and gaming fans were early birds, with 57 per cent of all deals purchased between 12am - 4.30am being video games consoles, games and tablets. The biggest hour in 2016 was 9-10am with 720,000 visits to the Argos website, equating to 12,000 visits a minute and 18 orders per second.