Online shopping soared over Christmas, with half the adult population using the internet to buy goods and clicking through purchases worth a staggering £4.98 billion, according to new research out today.
The Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) calculates that over the whole of last year, consumers spent £19.2bn on online retail goods, nearly a third higher than the previous year.
And as it predicted a further surge in activity over the coming year, IMRG suggested that shoppers will spend an average of more than £1,000 each online for the first time.
Last year some 24 million British consumers used the internet to buy retail goods, spending an average of £816 each.
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As it described the festive period as an e-Christmas, IMRG predicted that electronic retailing, or e-tailing, will jump by 36 per cent this year, with annual online sales worth £26 billion.
In the 10-week run-up to Christmas, internet shopped leaped by 50 per cent, with sales peaking during the week beginning December 5 at £653 million, according to IMRG. Sales worth £584 million were recorded in each of the weeks before and after this period.
Jo Tucker, the managing director at IMRG who is in charge of its online retail index, said: “A step change happened in retailing at Christmas. Consumers have spoken. They want the convenience and choice that online shopping provides.
“Many just don’t have time to trudge the streets hoping goods are in stock. There can no longer be any doubt that the internet is a major part of the retail landscape, and that it will dominate the retail agenda for the next several years.”
But with internet shopping set to continue its rapid rise, IMRG bemoaned that lack of available items and the huge holes in online offerings even from some of Britain’s leading retailers.
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James Roper, the chief executive, said: “A surprising number of goods are still either hard to find or unavailable online. Large gaps exist in the supply market, such as high-end fashion and real estate.
Even leading retailers often only make a small proportion of their total inventory available online, and many don’t bother with spares at all. So huge growth potential remains for the merchants who plug these holes.”
IMRG’s online retail index showed that online shopping in the UK increased by 2,600% between April 2000 and December 2005, during which time the value of monthly sales rose from £87 million to £2.264 billion.
The surge in internet shopping comes as official figures from the Office for National Statistics showed that average weekly retail sales rose by 3.6 per cent in December as the wider recovery on the high street appears to be taking hold.