Bargain-hunters queue up from 4am

Next was one of the first to let shoppers through the doors, kicking off its sale at 5am in stores nationwide.

The half price or less sale was so popular that online shoppers faced a wait of up to 20 minutes to get on to the company's website.

Marks & Spencer, which attracted 25,000 people in the first hour of its online sale on Christmas Day, offered more bargains when its sale started in stores from 6am on Saturday.

There were also queues at Harrods where opera singer Katherine Jenkins declared the sale open at 9am, prompting a scramble for bargains like Gucci boots reduced from £320 to £179.

Saturday's bargain bonanza follows a difficult month with slow sales in early December prompting price cutting on a level never seen before on the High Street. Spending picked up just before Christmas and many stores reported frenetic Boxing Day trading.

The number of Boxing Day shoppers nationwide was up 2.3% on last year, according to Springboard, which monitors 27 locations in London's West End and across 50 other major towns and cities in the UK.

The West End overall saw 3.5% more people than Boxing Day last year while the number in Oxford Street was up 5.4%.

Jace Tyrrell, of the New West End Company, said the post Christmas bargain-hunt was fantastic news for many shops which suffered an anxious start to the month. But he added people seemed to be spending more carefully.

Mr Tyrrell said the strong euro was helping London with a high number of European visitors visiting the capital to shop.