Christmas shoppers avoiding the High Street took the value of
e-commerce sales in the UK to £1.175 billion in November, up 44% on
the same month last year, according to a report by the Interactive
Media in Retail Group (IMRG).
Christmas shoppers avoiding the High Street took the value of e-commerce sales in the UK to £1.175 billion in November, up 44% on the same month last year, according to a report by the Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG).
IMRG compares this to a much more modest 3.6% growth across all retail sales reported by the British Retail Consortium.
The research, published on e-Christmas.com – a site that represents an e-tail industry campaign – includes data from internet traffic monitoring service Hitwise. It shows that 9.7% of all visits on-line were to retail sites – a 138% increase from November last year, and a 12% increase on October 2003.
Visits to UK electronics and appliances sites have grown by 43% over the last year, while visits to UK grocery and alcohol sites have grown by 21.4% over the same period.
The ten top sites visited were: E-Bay UK, Amazon UK, E-Bay Shops UK, Kelkoo UK, Argos, Tesco, Play.com, EmpireDirect, DealTime UK, and Argos Entertainment.
The top ten searched-for items, as reported by Kelkoo, were: iPod, PlayStation 2, DVD Player, Digital Camera, Freeview, Sony, Canon, Panasonic, DVD and Xbox.
In general, IMRG estimates UK on-line retail to be worth around £15 billion this year, representing 7% of all retail, and still growing at close to 50% per annum.
See: The report
See also: On-line Christmas shopping to boom in Europe, says Forrester, OUT-LAW News, 14/11/2003
