Amazon.co.uk has predicted that its busiest day for online shopping in the UK, will fall on Monday 2nd December this year.

Amazon’s UK site had 3.5 million items ordered at a rate of 41 items being sold per minute in last year’s first Monday of December (also known as Cyber Monday),

Amazon has also announced it will be hiring more than 15,000 people across the UK for the Christmas period in order to meet customer demand.

Xavier Garambois, Vice President of EU Retail at Amazon said: “The expected peak in sales at 6pm on Cyber Monday is interesting as traditionally sales have spiked later in the evening. In fact, in 2011, sales peaked at 9.20pm,”

“The earlier rush indicates that people will be using their commute to get a head start on their shopping or logging on as soon as they get home, so they can relax in the knowledge that their Christmas shopping is done.”

Whilst Cyber Monday is the biggest single day for online sales, Black Friday Deals Week is also expected to be Amazon.co.uk’s biggest week to date this year when it launches on Monday 25th November.