UK online sales will rise to £40bn this year and will quadruple to £162bn by 2020, according to new research.

Web-based shopping will account for 16 per cent of retail spending by the end of the year, according to price comparison site Uswitch.com. And in 13 years time, internet transactions will account for 40 per cent of the market.

Shoppers spent a record £4.2bn online in July, up from £2.34bn in the same month last year. The UK public is expected to spend £14bn on the web in the run-up to this Christmas, the highest figure in Europe.

An improvement in connection speeds has helped boost the market for online shopping, said Steve Weller, head of communications services at Uswitch.

“Over the last five years broadband prices have halved while speeds have gone up, making it cheaper and simpler for consumers to log on instead of going out to the shops," he said.

UK users now spend more time shopping online than banking, playing games or downloading music, according to Uswitch.

The research is based upon figures from the Office of National Statistics.