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The BBC's Sophie van Brugen reports from Westfield, London, where shoppers queued throughout the night
British shoppers are expected to spend almost £3bn in the Boxing Day sales, experts have predicted.
Large numbers of bargain-hunters have been descending on High Streets and shopping centres across the UK.
Shops began cutting prices and opening as early as 06:00 GMT in a bid to tempt customers in.
Market analyst Experian says online spending is expected to be the "biggest and busiest ever", accounting for almost £500m on Boxing Day.
Tube strikeEnd Quote Helen Dickinson Director general of the British Retail ConsortiumThere is only so much cost-cutting and new efficiency retailers can achieve"
Thousands of people gathered from shortly after midnight at major shopping centres around the country, such as Westfield in London, Bluewater in Kent and Birmingham's Bullring, where Debenhams, Selfridges and Next were offering discounts of up to 50%.
In central London, there could be problems for shoppers because of a strike by Tube drivers - although extra buses will be provided to the West End and the Westfield shopping centres in Stratford and White City.
It is the third year in a row that drivers on the Underground have taken industrial action on Boxing Day.
But shoppers in the London suburbs have seemingly not been deterred, with Next reported by BBC readers to be completely overwhelmed by demand at some of its branches.
In Kingston-upon-Thames, queues were seen tailing around the block just after the clothing store opened at 06:00 GMT.
In Leeds, Dean Stratton, manager of the White Rose Shopping Centre, told the BBC that they were experiencing a very busy Christmas and Boxing Day.
"We've had a couple of records," he said. "Christmas week was our busiest single week ever for footfall and Christmas Eve was the biggest we've had here."
Other shopping centres were also claiming record numbers of visitors, including the St David's centre in Cardiff.
However, Mr Stratton conceded that it was too early to say whether the bigger crowds in shops had actually spent more than last year.
Price comparison website MoneySupermarket.com said shoppers were planning to spend £2.9bn in the Boxing Day sales, according to a survey that it had conducted.
But rival website Pricerunner said said that almost half of the people it asked in a separate survey were not planning on buying anything in the sales.
Business failuresThe British Retail Consortium (BRC) said Christmas spending in shops this year was "acceptable but not exceptional".
"Christmas hasn't been a boom time for UK retailers, but it hasn't been complete doom and gloom either," said Helen Dickinson, the BRC's new director general.
She said that spending by shoppers was likely to have increased in 2012 only broadly in line with rising prices, and that there had been big variations in individual retail performances.
The BRC has said some High Street retailers would "undoubtedly" fail after Christmas.
"Sales were hard-fought and often driven by discounts, so cutting into margins," said Ms Dickinson.
The normal surge in pre-Christmas came late this year, partly due to shoppers holding back for a bargain, she said, and partly because many crammed their purchases into the weekend just before Christmas Eve, which fell on a Monday this year.
The BRC director general said that the outlook is not particularly encouraging either: "The pressure is coming from adapting to conditions that consistently deliver minimal year-on-year sales growth.
"There is only so much cost-cutting and new efficiency retailers can achieve."
Further rises in utility bills in the New Year, as well as a continued focus by customers on repaying their debts, meant that 2013 was likely to be characterised by "more of the same", she added.
Online 'record-breaker'Another factor hurting High Street retailers is the general shift to online sales.
Business recovery group Begbies Traynor has warned that many shops faced the threat of closure as more customers turned to the internet.
Experian said visits to retail websites were expected to reach 126 million on Boxing Day, an increase of 31% on last year.
James Murray, from Experian, said: "Christmas 2012 is on track to be another record-breaker for online retail, outstripping 2011 on all fronts.
"The current market trends suggest that in the UK, Boxing Day will be the biggest day for online retail, with an estimated 126 million visits to online retail outlets and a massive 17 million hours spent online shopping on this day alone."
Amazon UK said it had seen sales on Christmas Day increase by 263% over the last five years.
This was partly due to the growth in home broadband and the popularity of tablets and smartphones.
Moneysupermarket.com's survey found that four million people plan to head to the stores, while five million will shop online.
However, the BRC took a more sanguine view: "There are a lot of myths around online retail," said BRC spokesman Richard Dodd,
"Ten per cent of overall retailing over the year comes from online shopping and actually it presents lots of opportunities for the retail sector."
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