SHOPPERS keen to bag a bargain have hit the sales as shops in Stroud and across the UK opened their doors early for Black Friday.

Retailers made cut-price deals available online from midnight and many shops changed their opening hours to offer customers more time to snap up discounted stock, ranging from televisions to toothbrushes.

It is expected that customers could spend their way to the UK's first £1 billion in online shopping day today.

Tesco, which opened many of its stores at 5am, had installed queuing systems and assured shoppers there would be enough security and stock following scuffles over limited numbers of items last year.

Ebay is expecting nine million Britons to visit its website today, Argos, Currys PC World and AO.com are all offering hundreds of pounds off selected items, while John Lewis has promised to honour its Never Knowingly Undersold pledge and match competitors' prices.

Amazon.co.uk is offering its Fire tablet for £34.99, £15 cheaper than the regular price, as well as deals on televisions, video game consoles and Star Wars toys and £650 off a Gibson electric guitar, while those in the market for fine jewellery can snap up a white gold and diamond tennis bracelet for £3,500 off the regular price of £8,995.

Last year, Black Friday overtook Cyber Monday for the first time as Amazon.co.uk's busiest day, when it sold more than 5.5 million items at a rate of 64 per second.