Christmas e-sales continue to grow

Shops must meet user demands, and expectations

Continuing an annual trend ecommerce sales in the UK are still rising. Although some firms may have to change their business practices if they are to make the most of this new consumer behaviour.

The IMRG (Interactive Media in Retail Group) studied internet traffic over the holiday period and found that on Christmas day some 4.4m consumers hit the net and spent £84m. The IMRG worked with SecureTrading, a provider of payment technologies, and eDigital Research to further drill down user activity, finding that sales grew by almost 300 per cent against the previous year, with each person spending roughly £20.

Chris Russell, director at eDigital Research, attributed much of the growth to clever marketing tactics by web firms such as Argos that started their sales a day earlier online.

The UK-based ISP PlusNet released a list of the ten most popular sites visited by people in the UK on Christmas Day. Argos and Marks and Spencer both feature in the list, but social networking sites were more popular. The BBC, Apple and Microsoft were also present in the top ten, suggesting that users were not just online to shop but might be looking for technical information about new purchases. Neil Armstrong, product director at the ISP, said, "there is no day of rest for the British bargain hunter."

Another survey, this one by Foresee Results looked at consumers' satisfaction with online shopping. Although a number of sites performed well, many high profile sites, including Currys, Comet and WHSmith, did less well, disappointing shoppers and potentially leading to less traffic, sales, and repeat visits in the future, Foresee warned.