Click-and-collect purchases will surge by more than 60% to total over £4bn by 2018, as consumers choose to use the increasingly prevalent and convenient service.

Research from retail analyst Verdict shows that of the 10,000 online shoppers surveyed, 27% of respondents said they expected to increase their use of click-and-collect.

Despite the rapid growth of the service, it will still only be worth around 8% of online sales in 2018 and 1.2% of total retail sales.

Verdict analyst Matthew Rubin said: “Home delivery companies, and pureplay online retailers are looking to offer collection points at convenience stores and lockers, same day delivery, narrower delivery time slots and improved tracking and updates of estimated delivery times.”

The clothing and footwear sector has the highest penetration of click-and-collect use, with 23.5% of customers surveyed shopping online and 46.5% of click-and-collect users in the category. The second-placed sector is electricals, which has 15.4% penetration of online shoppers and 30.6% of click-and-collect users.

Rubin explains: “This is down to the frequent nature of clothing purchases and the ability to ensure size and range availability compared to store shopping as well as the shortened lead time compared to home delivery which can be crucial in some clothing transactions.”

Research also showed that the split between men and women is relatively even with 54% of women making up the users.  

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