Bargain hunters started queuing at Bluewater Shopping Centre at 2am this morning for the Boxing Day sales.

Footfall at the centre in Greenhithe is on track to exceed 130,000 today as shoppers turn up to take advantage of retail discounts.

There were already around 4,000 people queuing by 6am when Next opened.

Stores across Kent are opening for longer and slashing prices in a bid to entice shoppers away from online stories.

Robert Goodman, Bluewater’s general manager, said: “We knew that today was going to be busy when we saw a 10% increase in sales of our Bluewater gift cards in the run up to Christmas, which are usually redeemed in the Boxing Day sales.

"In addition, we saw surge in traffic to our mobile optimised website on Christmas Day concentrating on ‘offers’ pages and ‘store opening hours’.

“Traditionally, the majority of guests on Boxing Day are families, who visit to treat themselves and make a day of it. By 9am, our car parks were busy with guests arriving to have breakfast before starting their sale shopping. In fact, we served our first coffees at around 5am and our restaurants expect to be busy throughout the day.

“The next six days are likely to be the busiest of the year.”