This year, shoppers avoided the busy high streets and did their shopping online according to retail data from Springboard.
The number of Britons who took to the shops fell by six percent compared to Boxing day last year, while online transactions increased by 11.5 percent.
Springboard has said that evidence of changing shopping habits is clear as the number of people in shopping centres this year on Boxing Day morning fell by a huge 16.6 percent, compared to the same period last year.
In London, the department store Harrods saw no significant difference.
“I have to say we have never seen numbers like it, 20 minutes after we opened they were still streaming in from Sloane Street,” said the managing director of the luxury department store, Michael Ward.
“Christmas has been particularly strong this year,” he said, highlighting the strong demand for bags and shoes, with Gucci (OTCMKTS:GUCG) and Yves Saint Laurent among the more popular brands in store.
Whilst most decrease in spending is blamed on economic uncertainty surrounding Brexit, Ward said Harrods remained safe from the economic despair since the referendum.
“The top end of the market is always less affected than anyone else. The second [factor] is to an extent London is a bit of a bubble in the UK. So from our perspective we’ve got great local customers plus we’ve seen more international customers come to London,” he said.
Similarly to Black Friday, there are expected to be huge volumes of returns from sales. A record 1 billion pounds worth of items are expected to be returned after this year’s Black Friday as online customers adopted a “buy now and decide later” stance, The Telegraph
According to The Telegraph, a record one billion pounds worth of items are expected to be returned from Black Friday, as online customers adopt a “buy now and decide later” stance.