Black Friday sales are renowned for causing a frenzy for retailers, but Jason Daniel's business is already in the thick of it.

Instead of waiting for the traditional four-day Black Friday-Cyber Monday sales weekend, the founder and CEO of Brisbane-based activewear brand LSKD opted to start a week ago.

"Night one in the first hour is always crazy, there's a lot of community online and we did break our app … it couldn't handle the traffic," he said.

"We don't tend to go on sale very often, so when we do it is quite large."

While launching sales a week before Black Friday would be considered early to some, Mr Daniel said it was later in comparison to other retailers.

"I know a lot of other brands are going earlier, but we made the decision to go later," he said.

Within five days of launching its sale, LSKD had received over 127,000 orders and began staffing its distribution centre in Loganholme around the clock.

Mr Daniel set a lofty goal to have 70 per cent of those orders shipped by the time Black Friday officially started — but acknowledged more orders would be rolling in.

It's still a surreal experience for the entrepreneur, who has gradually built the business since 2007.

"The journey's been very long … so to be in this position and [with] how fast the brand is growing, we definitely don't take it for granted," he said.

"When we first moved in here just over two years ago, obviously we used a lot less space.

Billions of dollars of bargains

Retailers like LSKD are set to benefit from a surge in sales over the Black Friday sales period, with Roy Morgan forecasting Australians will spend $6.7 billion in four days.

That would make this year's Black Friday the biggest on record, and a 5.5 per cent increase compared to 12 months ago.

It's welcome news for the retail sector, which has held more frequent sales throughout the year to entice shoppers to spend despite the higher cost of living.

"Retailers are feeling cautiously optimistic about the peak season spend," Fleur Brown, from the Australian Retailers Association said.

"Many of the discretionary retailers make about two-thirds of their profits during the peak season trading period, so there's a lot riding on it.

Ms Brown said with Christmas approaching, budget conscious shoppers were set to take advantage of the November sales season.

"[The] cost of living is certainly driving the way that people are spending this year, they're on the hunt for a bargain and value for money, and Black Friday really offers that," she said.

"Retailers know they've got to fight really hard to win the customer dollar this year."

Buy now, debt later?

Alongside a surge in sales, the cost of living and higher interest rates is set to see more shoppers turn to buy now pay later services.

"This year we're expecting to be our biggest Black Friday Cyber Monday ever," Afterpay's Kevin Azzopardi said.

"We find that consumers use Afterpay as a bit of a budgeting tool, it really helps them to just plan out their spend and their repayments over the holiday season."

Mr Azzopardi said there has been a clear shift in consumer behaviour this year in response to household budget pressures, with shoppers capitalising on sales that had started early.

"Australian consumers have become incredibly savvy, especially when it comes to sales periods … so that an item is a lot more affordable," he said.

"We always recommend that consumers try and avoid getting caught up in the frenzy of sales … [and] they set themselves a budget and create a list of items they want to purchase … and then they stick to that."

The temptation to overspend on sales because of big discounts has prompted warnings from financial support services, including the National Debt Helpline.

"Now they're calling up concerned about being able to buy gifts for Christmas.

"The Black Friday sales are going to be a bit of a tease for a lot of people … because they're cheaper.

"I think we're going to see a big increase in calls, especially around this time."

On Thursday, the ACCC urged shoppers to be wary of online scams during Black Friday sales.

"If you see an offer that you think that offer is just too good to be true, it probably is," said the head of the consumer watchdog, Gina Cass-Gottlieb.

Will Black Friday make inflation worse?

The Black Friday-Cyber Monday sales are the first major sales event since the stage 3 tax cuts came into effect.

Figures released by the ABS on Wednesday showed inflation in the year to October had steadied to 2.1 per cent.

With billions of dollars set to flow into the economy in a matter of days, ANZ senior economist Adelaide Timbrell said the surge in spending would have an impact on inflation in the months ahead.

"The things that you would buy on Black Friday, things you don't need in order to survive, they do take up a little bit of the inflation number," Ms Timbrell said.

"The bigger contributors to inflation are things like new dwelling costs, or the cost to build a home, the cost of rent, the cost of insurance, the cost of up until recently, things like electricity, none of these are really affected by Black Friday.

"Inflation will pop back up after the Black Friday sales as prices pop back up as well, so it's going to be something that has a very temporary effect.

"Although how much consumers actually spend during Black Friday could be a bit of a barometer in terms of the health of household finances."

However, she noted that it was unlikely to significantly affect the timing of interest rate cuts by the Reserve Bank further.

"The only way I could see a big Black Friday having any effect on the Reserve Bank is if they see consumers spending so much that they go, 'Oh, OK, households have a bit more money than we thought, and if we do a rate cut, maybe they'll get too excited and create inflation in the future.'

"That's the risk. It's not so much the direct Black Friday effect, it's all of the information you gain around the edges."