Black Friday UK 2015: EBay has just unveiled its first deals for bargain-hunters including offers on Macbook Pro, Xbox One Console, LG 50 inch Smart LED TV, Lenovo Notebook
As all good retailers know, Black Friday is not about incremental sales, it's about being the first to snare the finite amount of cash consumers are willing to spend in the run-up to Christmas.
Amazon has kickstarted the process with the first of its 7,000 deals going live this morning. Carphone Warehouse, Very and a host of other retailers have followed suit.
EBay has similarly thrown down the Black Friday gauntlet, revealing it plans to run eight days of deals, starting today.
Read more: Why shoppers are missing out the best Black Friday deals
The first batch of deals live now include a Macbook Pro 13 inch with 8GB for £749, an Xbox One Console 500GB game bundle for £249.99, an LG 50 inch Smart LED TV for £449.99 and a Lenovo Notebook with 1TB hard drive for £279.99.
On top of this the etailer has launched what it claims to be the world's first "social gift concierge service", called EBay Elves.
From now until 20 December, four little helpers will be available on Twitter to provide solutions to "present-hunting predicaments".
Each of the four has a different specialism – for example @eBay_UK_Alice is "the epitome of the modern mum" whie @eBay_UK_Carrie is "an absolute aficionado on throwing the perfect Christmas party – even on a budget".
For those looking for a gift to impress colleagues for Secret Santa, EBay suggests consumers get in touch with @eBay_UK_Steve and for original gift (and gift-wrapping) ideas, the retailer has @eBay_UK_Greg on hand.
To help you plan ahead, you can find all the latest deals, news and opinion on Black Friday here, including Tesco, Currys PC World and Amazon. But don't expect to find Asda among them this year, the supermarket has set a precedent and pulled out of the sales bonanza.