Black Friday hits the UK with Christmas discounts of up to 70 per cent for shoppers Andrew Moore, Asda's chief merchandising officer, said: "Last year Wal-Mart reported their best ever Black Friday event with stores in the US serving over 22 million customers in one day. We're taking our lead from them and utilising their know how to help create an offer that means Asda shoppers can benefit from incredible savings at a time when they really need us the most. He said 40 per cent of customers were aware of the term 'Black Friday' and insisted it could eventually become as big a part of the retail calender as Hallow'een - which has grown incredibly as a retail event over the past decade. Very.co.uk said it was cutting the price of homeware, fashion, beauty and electrical items by as much as 70 per cent from 8am on Friday, when it will highlight 10 new promotions every hour until 8pm. Sony Wireless headphones will be cut from £99 to £49 while a 43 inch Samsung Plasma TV will be cut from £549 to £349. Electricals specialist Maplin is cutting the price of a Silver USB Touchscreen Weather Forecaster by £50 to £49.99 while a Steam Mop that was £89.99 is being reduced by £20. John Lewis last year price matched rivals' Black Friday offers but expects to do more than ever before this time round, with discounts of up to 50 per cent on small electrical and audio items, up to £200 on selected large appliances and laptops and up to 25 per cent on selected TVs. Mark Lewis, John Lewis online director said: "Traditionally christmas shopping ratchets up this weekend as it's when people start to think about that bit more, and it's a time when for many they get their last big pay packet of the year." Black Friday is followed by Mega or Cyber Monday on December 2, the day most stores will be the busiest for online shopping. Amazon sold 41 items a second on Monday December 3 last year, with 3.5 million items ordered on the site. But Amazon is doubling the amount of products on offer on Friday to 2,000, with "Lightning Deals" offering a limited quantity of a product for a limited period of time. Christopher North, UK managing director, said: "Since we started Black Friday deals in the UK, the concept has really caught on and is now a much anticipated event in the UK shopping calender. In 2012, we offered millions of pounds off more than 1,000 deals including high-spec coffee machines, signed CDs and Kindle Fire devices. This year we'll be releasing twice as many deals to make it easy for customers to save money on this year's must have gifts.