Christmas Day will see £100m spent online
Five million people will shop online on Christmas Day, spending an average of £20 each, says IMRG.
Five million people will shop online on Christmas Day, spending an average of £20 each, says IMRG.
This Christmas, 5.24 million shoppers will go online and spend £103.6 m an average of £19.77 each, says IMRG, up from £84 m on Christmas Day 2007.
There was a 44% increase in traffic from Christmas Eve to Christmas Day 2007, says IMRG, and the trend is expected to continue this Christmas as more and more shoppers turn to the internet for their shopping fix and take advantage of the Christmas Sales.
“What’s different about this year is the huge growth we’ve seen in the week before Xmas as consumers have left their shopping to the last minute,” said Stuart Rowe, chief operations officer at Play.com . “If this continues we’ll see significant growth on Christmas day as people spend their Christmas money and gift vouchers.”
Brian McBride, managing director at Amazon.co.uk, is also expecting increasing consumer interest, explaining that “December 25th is an increasingly important day for online retail and we expect this year’s to be very busy. Many people will visit Amazon.co.uk to redeem their gift vouchers or take advantage of our sale and, with MP3 players set to be one of the big gifts this Christmas, we would expect many people to be visiting our new MP3 store as well.”
Robin Goad, research director at Hitwise UK, commented that “Christmas Day and Boxing Day are becoming more important for online retailers every year. Last year, for the first time ever, Boxing Day was the busiest day for online retailers bar none, while online retail traffic also increased by 44% between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Given the current hunger for bargains, it seems likely that both days will be even busier this year”.
Robin Terrell, Managing Director of John Lewis Direct, noted that: “Our aim is to make sure that John Lewis is there for our customers in ways that suit their lifestyles. As part of this goal we are for the first time ever starting our online Clearance on Christmas Eve.”
