UK Royal Mail predicts record e-xmas
UK’s Royal Mail are forecasting a recordbreaking e-Christmas this year with shoppers set to spend $5.8 billion on gifts ordered over the Internet.
The Royal Mail expects to deliver over 40 million of the 70 million items that’ll be ordered online, double the number it handled last year.
According to the Royal Mail and e-retailing trade group IMRG, Internet sales are accelerating faster than ever before with spending in the four weeks running up to Christmas predicted to be worth double that of last year.
The forecasts also indicate not just a buoyant Christmas in e-retail but record online sales for all of 2003. An estimated $25.9 billion should be spent online this year, double last year.
“Online retail shopping in the UK is still rapidly growing and once again is set to provide a bumper Christmas for the UK’s e-retailers, with two-thirds of consumers who shop online spending $5.77 billion [£3.34 billion] in November and December,” said the Royal Mail’s head of goods distribution Ross Drake. Women now represent half the UK’s 12 million regular online shoppers. However, men still outspend women, the average man spending roughly $1,505 a year online compared the woman’s $1,218.
The Royal Mail and its sister concern Parcelforce Worldwide deliver about two-thirds of the country’s Internet orders.
