There was one big drawback with the US department stores' websites on Black Friday and shortly thereafter, and this was that they crashed many times. No doubt that comes down to the sheer weight of traffic.

I hope that next year the US websites are better prepared for the Chinese buying spree, and that Chinese e-commerce companies, much better equipped technically, bolster their efforts with something they can ill afford to do without: trust.

When the dust settles it will be interesting to see sales figures, and an indication of how big a proportion of them can be attributed to Chinese.

So what did I finally ending up buying on my Fifth Avenue shopping excursion? Nothing.