Internet shopping was 50% higher last year than 2004 and this year IMRG anticipates that sales will be up 40% on 2005 with UK shoppers spending £7 billion online - or £4 million every hour during the 10-week run-up to Christmas 2006. IMRG estimates that Christmas shopping online will be equivalent to the sales of 30 Bluewater Shopping Centres this year. Verdict Research meanwhile puts fourth quarter online shopping at £3.4 billion, or 4.5% of all Christmas spending.
"Some six million products are available online to UK Christmas shoppers," says IMRG in its Christmas Statement. Sales of these products will result in 180 million deliveries saving people an awful lot of travelling, time and stress.
Along with statistics and data showing historical Christmas online spend, the IMRG Christmas Statement also includes messages from some of its members on how they are approaching Christmas 2006:
"Last year we despatched over 400,000 units on our busiest day and we are confident we will beat that this year."
Brian McBride, Managing Director, Amazon.co.uk
"We're geared up for a bigger online Christmas than ever before - be it TVs, toys, toasters or turkeys!"
Steve Robinson, CEO, Tesco Direct
"We at ASOS are gearing up for what will be our biggest trading period ever... we expect to ship over 1 million items across the festive period."
Nick Robertson CEO, ASOS.com
"Littlewoods online sales are heading towards £400m and we expect this growth to accelerate over the final weeks before Christmas. Additional features which we've added, such as shop by spread and the ability to zoom in on products, has led to increased customer confidence and high levels of conversion."
Mark Newton-Jones, Group chief Executive, Littlewoods Shop Direct Group
"Our website is our biggest store, with more than 1,400 lines on sale at any one time. We are consistently seeing week on week growth in terms of traffic to the site."
Sarah Wilson, Head of E-Commerce, Dorothy Perkins
Emma Herrod
"this article first appeared on Internet Retailing .net magazine and is reproduced in full by permission. © http://www.internetretailing.net/ 2006”
