Internet Changes Everything

Web shopping boom: the top presents

Times Online - Online Specials

As retailers complained of low numbers of shoppers in the run-up to Christmas, online sales were predicted to be taking up the slack. Ellen Connolly reports on online shopping's "biggest year so far".

Online shopping scored an unprecedented success this Christmas as Britons opted to snap up presents from the comfort of their swivel chairs.

The trend was echoed worldwide with amazon.com, one of the world's biggest online retailers, setting a single-day record of more than 2.1 million products ordered, or 24 items per second, worldwide.

Britons are predicted to have spent £3.3billion on shopping over the Internet this Christmas, a rise of 80 per cent, according to retail trade body IMRG.

It says that online sales rose 44 per cent in November, 12 times as fast as the bricks and mortar retail sector.

The trends were reflected in shops across the UK - retailers reporting a drop in trade as people decided to avoid the expected high street crush.

A spokeswoman at amazon.co.uk said: "It's our biggest year so far."

Some of the best sellers on the Internet were electronic goods such as digital cameras, PlayStation 2, DVD players and the Apple i-POD digital music player.

Food shopping over the Internet gained in popularity. J Sainsbury, the supermarket, said it had noted a large increase this Christmas in people using its online shopping service – for essentials such as toilet paper as well as the heavy Christmas staples including champagne and turkey.

The retail giant also said that customers were planning ahead for the new year with an increase in sales of condoms and Alka Seltzer.

Kelkoo.co.uk, one of Europe's biggest price comparison sites, said that sales of lingerie and clothes were up fivefold on this time last year.

Amazon.co.uk said that DVD players were the most popular electronic item for UK shoppers. Worldwide, digital cameras topped the electronics list and in amazon.com's the home section the iRobot Roomb robotic vacuum cleaner, and James Bond's Shaver of Choice were top sellers.

During the second week of December, spending by US online shoppers was up 48 per cent compared to the same period of 2002, reaching close to $3 billion, according to a study by Goldman Sachs, Harris Interactive and Nielsen NetRatings.

As a result, online sales in the United States for the first time were expected to surpass $100 billion in 2003, compared to $76 billion in 2002, according to the Forrester Research institute.

December 31, 2003 at 11:08 PM in eCommerce | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home