Boxing Day apparently set a new British record for the number of shoppers who went online.

Boxing Day apparently set a new British record for the number of shoppers who went online.

Britons looking for a bargain made more than 100 million visits to online retailers that day, spending 14 million hours online in the process. As a result, Experian reported that online sales were up by 17% compared with Boxing Day the previous year.

John Lewis, which is quickly becoming the bellwether of both the high street and the e-commerce worlds, reported sales of £684.8 million for the five weeks to 29 December, with online sales, which now account for a quarter of John Lewis’ business, increasing by more than 44% compared with the prior year.

Next also emerged as one of the winners in Christmas trading as strong online and Directory sales and fewer markdowns helped it to achieve profits of more than £600 million.  

Like John Lewis, the performance of Next’s non-store offering outpaced its real world shops considerably, with Directory sales for November and December up by 11% on the previous year, compared with growth of just 0.8% in its stores.

None of this should come as a surprise, of course.  According to Ofcom, online shopping is more popular in the UK than in any other country in the world, with UK consumers now spending an average of £1,083 a year on internet shopping, significantly ahead of second place Australia at £842.

A study by Boston Consulting Group only helps to confirm these findings, as it states that the UK is now ranked number one of all G20 nations in terms of the amount the internet contributes to GDP.

In fact, if the internet were isolated as a sector in its own right, the report claims that it would be the fifth largest in the UK: bigger than healthcare, education and construction.

So what does the future hold? Mobile devices are already feeding the UK’s online shopping habit even further.

Deloitte recently forecast that £3.5 billion of Christmas sales were made through, or influenced by, smartphone usage. The word ‘influence’ is important to note here as the influence of smartphones far outweighs the value of direct sales made through them. Consumers are increasingly using their smartphones to check prices, create shopping lists, use social media and pay for their purchases.  

Perhaps that’s why over a third of SME e-retailers have reported that they will be prioritising mobile development next year, according to a new survey conducted by the Royal Mail.

More than a third (35%) of respondents said that they were planning mobile apps for 2013, and 10% say will be ready to launch these new apps in the coming months. 

New developments in social shopping, the ability to deliver a more personalised user experience, sophisticated price comparison tools and the ability to suggest associated or complementary products along with ones already purchased are likely to fuel this boom even further.

But, before we get too carried away, I don’t think that anyone is saying that online shopping will mark the end of traditional bricks-and-mortar retail. In fact, the two will probably end up helping each other in the years ahead.

Services like ‘click and collect’ are already giving customers the best of both worlds: they get all of the convenience of shopping online, while avoiding shipping charges, lengthy delivery times and can chat with in-store experts about their purchases.

At the same time, retailers benefit from the possibility of add-on or impulse sales once they have the customer in-store. If you look at it that way, a new generation of shoppers and retailers may finally be able to have their cake and eat it too. They’ll just need to make sure that it’s available online.

  • Dan Coen, Director, Zolfo Cooper