Black Friday (shopping) Black Friday. In 2015, Black Friday was predicted to become the biggest day of shopping in Britain, with as much as £2bn spent in shops and online in 24 hours. However, many large retailers have discontinued, downplayed or heavily modified the concept since 2014, sometimes citing disruption to Christmas trading patterns or bad publicity. Black Friday appears to be growing in popularity year on year in the UK. In 2016, total spending on online retail sites on Black Friday 2016 was £1.23bn, marking a +12.2% increase on the £1.1bn spent on the same day in 2015. In 2017, retail sales
Waurn Ponds Shopping Centre the opening of Reading Cinemas, and then the opening of Coles supermarket followed in 2002. Following this redevelopment in 2002, the Centre was officially renamed Waurn Ponds Shopping Centre. The shopping centre was again redeveloped in 2007 with an expanded Target and 36 new specialty stores. A further two-stage redevelopment in 2014 saw Waurn Ponds Shopping Centre double in size to 48,000 sq/m. The first stage, which opened in May 2014, saw new Kmart and Coles megastores and a food court, whilst stage 2 saw another 40 speciality stores open in August 2014. The Centre was bought by Australian Unity