Debenhams anticipates 250 orders a minute at peak Black Friday

Debenhams, the department store which is in the midst of a turnaround programme, said it anticipates taking 250 orders a minute during peak trading during this season's Black Friday event.

The retailer said it expected this Friday's trade to be 800% bigger than a regular Friday and has said that £270m worth of bargains will be on offer from Monday 25 November through Black Friday itself (29 November), with special daily deals running through to Cyber Monday on 2 December.

Debenhams has recently added 7,000 seasonal staff to help it through the Christmas trading period while 500 staff from the London Support Centre are being drafted in to help at stores around the country.

"Debenhams has a long tradition of kick-starting the Christmas shopping season with amazing offers on the last payday before Christmas. We always have an event in the week Black Friday falls and this year’s is bigger and better than ever," said Debenhams managing director of fashion, beauty & home Steven Cook.

Black Friday and Christmas trading will be more crucial than ever for Debenhams this year, following its buyout by a consortium of investors in April of this year. The company is current trading under a CVA and last month it revealed it had secured £50 million of additional funding to help win over customers in the run up to Christmas.

During the Black Friday event Debenhams forecasts that:

• Black Friday will be 800% bigger than a regular Friday
• Debenhams.com will take around 250 orders a minute at peak
• The most popular time for browsing the website on smartphones is 7am
• The busiest time for online orders is 9-10pm
• £1 out of every £5 spent at Debenhams on Black Friday will be on Fragrance.