Black Friday's move online helped boost UK retail sales in November

Getty
Black Friday is one of the biggest days in the retail calendar
The Office for National Statistics' monthly retail sales data for November just dropped, and the figures beat expectations.
Total sales for UK retailers grew by 1.7% compared with October, and shot up by 5% against sales in November 2014.
Retail analysts predicted that sales in November would grow by 0.5%, rebounding from the 0.6% loss witnessed in October. It was also expected that year-on-year growth in the sector would hit 3%, down from the 3.8% reported in October's figures.
November's figures were given a boost by Black Friday, the American shopping day which was super popular last year but disappointed in stores this year, as shoppers opted not to take part in the crazy scenes witnessed in shops on Black Friday 2014.
Instead, shoppers went online to get their bargains, which was reflected in a 12.7% increase in online sales from November 2014, and a boost of 4.9% from October.
Earlier in December, the British Retail Consortium reported that retail sales in November grew by 0.7%, down from 2.2% over the same period last year, reflecting Black Friday's decrease in popularity.
Retail sales are watched closely for signs of the strength of the consumer recovery. Stronger figures could mean a Bank of England rate hike coming sooner rather than later.
How to use the realistic crying face filter on Snapchat
Elon Musk praised Netflix for telling employees to quit if they couldn't work on content they disagreed with. He previously bashed the platform as having a 'woke mind virus.'
The Terra LUNA crypto crash has sparked the debate on ‘true’ decentralisation
India's wholesale inflation rises further to 15.08% in April from 14.55% a month ago
China has released its list of top five sources of online fraud in 2022
There is a strong case to go long on LIC say analysts and macroeconomic indicators
Elon Musk says Twitter deal cannot move forward until Parag Agrawal proves less than 5% spam account claim
Watch: Astronaut shares breathtaking photos of the moon as seen from space during Lunar Eclipse