UK online commerce booming
15 December 2004
Britons will spend as much as £4 billion purchasing Christmas gifts online this festive season, according to analysts' estimates.
The estimates mark a 64 per cent increase on last year's festive online spend and suggest that UK consumers are increasingly turning to the internet as an easy shopping option.
Almost half of the UK population now shop online, according to the Interactive Media in Retail Group.
A survey by the group found that 85 per cent of online shoppers expect to do a lot of their Christmas gift buying online this year and each shopper will spend an average £220 on the internet.
Twenty billion UK shoppers are spending £17 billion a year using the internet and the survey predicts that by 2009 a quarter of all UK shopping will be conducted via the internet, with the online market worth £80 billion, according to the European Mail Order and Distance Selling Trade Association (Emota).
For the first time, Europe is outpacing America in online sales, with the UK, France, the Netherlands and Sweden at the forefront of internet shopping. Most shoppers choose to order holidays, clothes, consumer electronics and DVDs online, the Emota survey found.
Many shoppers are also using the net to find the hot presents that are selling out on the High Street. Internet sales doubled between 2002 and 2003 and some popular online retailers have seen sales triple in the last few months.
Emota secretary-general Aad Weening said: "We are also urging the European Commission to remove the barriers that still exist so that cross-border sales can also flourish, enabling our companies to spread out and consumers to take advantage of a wider and competitive choice of goods and services," he said.
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