BLACK Friday gave York's retailers a pre-Christmas boost - but with no sign of the frenzied chaos which engulfed stores elsewhere in Britain last year as.

The discount day, which originated in the United States, was expected by UK retailers to be their biggest shopping day of the year, with Visa Europe saying £1.9 billion could be spent online and in-store on its cards alone.

There were major reductions in prices at numerous stores in York city centre, for example discounts of up to 50 per cent at Top Man and up to 70 per cent at Lakeland, and 30 per cent off in every department at Debenhams.

York Press:

The Black Friday affect was strengthened in York by crowds visiting St Nicholas Fair, which traditionally attracts coachloads of shoppers from all over the country on the last Friday and weekend of November.

A Debenhams spokesman said it was not issuing performance statistics, but added: "Sales are going strong, with beauty being popular."

They added: Our stores opened earlier than normal at 8am with footfall at higher levels than a normal Friday. The first peak in the morning was around midday.”

Nick Brown, boss of Browns department store in Davygate, said it was offering discounts of as high as 70 per cent, and business was up by 12 per cent on Black Friday last year. "There are some real offers available," he said.

York Press:

Shoppers Sue Watkinson, left, and Kim Greenwood, from Skipton. Pictures: David Harrison

The websites of some of York's biggest retailers, John Lewis and Argos, struggled to cope yesterday with the volume of traffic.

John Lewis's website went down just after 3pm and one IT analyst estimated the company could have lost £2.8 million.

The retailer said: "There are record levels of demand for our website today and for some people it is taking longer than normal to shop on johnlewis.com. We apologise to customers for any inconvenience caused."

The Argos website also crashed several times, with consumers confronted with a holding page saying 'Oops...Sorry to hold you up'.

York Press:

Argos responded to customer concerns by saying on Twitter: "Order confirmations are taking longer than normal. Please sit tight, confirmation will be with you shortly."

Currys PC World also reported its biggest-ever start to Black Friday with eight sales per second and 30 TVs per minute selling online.