Hot on the heels of Black Friday, consumers are set to continue the shopping craziness during Cyber Monday today.

Following the chaos and flashes of violence that marred Friday’s event, today is based around online purchases and is therefore a relatively calm event – so nobody should be getting their eyes poked out over a cheap TV.

Internet shopping figures consistently peak on the first Monday in December, thought to be a combination of the last payday before Christmas falling on the previous Friday and a weekend spent browsing the shops before buying from home.

But retailers are continuing the pre-Christmas sales push with a new set of deals, and IMRG Experian predicts consumers will spend £649.6 million today, or £451,000 a minute - a 26 per cent increase on last year.

Electronics retailer ao.com predicts today will be its best ever day of sales, with televisions and small kitchen appliances expected to be the best performing categories, and is offering a host of fresh deals.

Amazon.co.uk is planning to release hundreds of limited "lightning deals" which offer discounts for a specific period, with new offers coming online every 10 minutes.

Last year's Cyber Monday was Amazon UK's busiest day of sales ever, with more than 4.1 million items ordered at a rate of around 47 per second, with sales peaking at 9.22pm.

Sage Pay also predicts that online retailers will take just over £600 million today as website visits hit 125 million peaking at noon, with its own figures showing that the total amount spent by UK consumers on Cyber Monday grew 15 per cent year-on-year in 2013.

Sage Pay chief executive Simon Black said: "With just four weeks until Christmas, Cyber Monday is traditionally the day when consumers rush online to do their festive shopping."

But security experts have warned consumers to be wary of cyber crime and take basic precautions as they shop.

Giovanni Ruberto, online security expert at Intel Security, said: "Cyber Monday is set to be the biggest online shopping day this year, and of course the bad guys know this.

"Whilst consumers are logging on from their laptop or smartphone to grab a bargain, you can bet cybercriminals will be doing all they can to trick unwitting consumers to hand over credit card information and personal details.

"Brits need to be on guard and watch out for any emails or websites that look suspicious and ensure they have at least basic security protection on their devices to ensure they're not fooled this Christmas."

Meanwhile, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said research showed that 55 per cent of the public find it difficult to support local small firms because they are often not online.

In addition, 52 per cent of customers go straight to search engines when looking to buy from local businesses, nearly double the number that ask for word-of-mouth recommendations.

BIS said small businesses and sole traders could be missing out on total website sales in the UK worth £164 billion without a digital presence.