RETAILERS in the region are preparing for the two busiest Christmas shopping days of the year.

Experts predict that today and tomorrow will see consumers braving the Christmas rush to spend millions of pounds on last minute gifts and essentials.

According to Barclays last year, on December 22 and 23, shoppers spent about £400m on their credit and debit cards.

This year, it expects shoppers to spend more than £4bn on their Barclaycards and Barclays debit cards to make it across the Christmas finishing line.

However, as the festive retail rush heats up, concerns have been raised over the pre-Christmas performance of high street brand Marks & Spencer.

City experts expressed concerns yesterday that the troubled retailer had experienced torrid trading in the run-up to Christmas.

Nick Bubb, of Evolution Securities, and Seymour Pierce's Richard Ratner warned that like-for-like sales at M&S during the past two weeks could be at least ten per cent lower than a year ago and that profits may fall short of expectations.

Their gloomy assessment of trading at M&S came despite two discount days in the past two months to tempt shoppers into stores.

Mr Ratner said the decision by M&S boss Stuart Rose to offer 20 per cent reductions on more than half of the products in stores may have backfired.

The popularity of the discount days was likely to have encouraged fewer shoppers to buy their Christmas gifts on the other days of those weeks, he said.

Products that would have sold at full price over the Christmas season were snapped up cheaply, leaving the less popular ranges hanging on the rails.

Mr Ratner said the discount days would also have squeezed margins, as he reduced his profits forecasts for M&S for the second time in just over a week.

M&S was now expected to post profits of £635m for the year, down from the £650m previously forecast by Seymour Pierce.

M&S will hope that last minute shoppers help boost sales, with Barclays predicting some people will even be shopping on Christmas Day.