Christmas Day visits to Dixons.co.uk jumped 100 per cent on last year, with Boxing Day visits up 40 per cent.

The online stampede gave the retailer an all-time high for site traffic, with the Christmas Day maximum recorded immediately after the Queen’s speech, between 4 pm and 6 pm.

Key products that shoppers were looking for included TVs, MP3 players, laptops, fridges and freezers. DeVere Forster, a director at Dixons, noted a new phenomenon dubbed “e-camping” where shoppers mimic the tradition of camping outside bricks-and-mortar stores by pre-ordering items online to get priority access to products as soon as they arrive.

“It seems that people are still enjoying their traditional family Christmas, but that the internet is becoming a source of family entertainment, as customers indulge in one of their favourite pastimes: window shopping,” he said.

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