Online shopping booms at Christmas and beyond

2 January 2007

As online retailers look forward to the year ahead, industry experts have estimated that seasonal online consumers spend over 50 per cent more at Christmas in 2006 than they did during the previous festive period.

The industry body IMRG suggest that spending during the ten weeks before Christmas reached £7.5 billion, an increase of £500 million on the previously-estimated figure.

But some experts believe that even this figure may prove to be conservative.

"Our gut reaction is that it could, if anything, be higher than that," said an E-consultancy.com article discussing the news.

With online receipts set to be bigger than ever before, it is unsurprising that many firms doing business online are expecting even more from 2007.

A study by retail consultants Actinic revealed that online e-tailers reported a 96 per cent increase in turnover during November and December, along with a 30 per cent increase in the number of shoppers.

And 75 per cent of those surveyed by Actinic said they expected online sales levels to increase once more over the course of the next year.

Category: Miscellaneous