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Online sales set to rise by 10% this Christmas
Archived article dated Monday December 1st 2008
Online Christmas sales are set to increase by 10% this year as more consumers use the internet for their Christmas gift and food shopping, according to research from the business advisory firm, Deloitte.
Total online spend is estimated to reach £4.7 billion this year, up 10% on 2007 (£4.2 billion).Ian Geddes, Lead Retail Consulting partner at Deloitte, said: “Although our research shows that the overall number of consumers using the internet for Christmas shopping is stable, these people are using the internet more often and spending more online than ever before. Consumers who do most of their shopping online are expecting to splash out over 15% more than people who will rely mainly on traditional bricks-and-mortar retail for their Christmas shopping.”
Our research shows that online consumers are planning to spend an average of £773 overall this Christmas compared with £655 for the total population. And unlike shoppers in other channels whose year-on-year planned spend is declining, online shoppers are planning to spend the same as last year on gifts and food this Christmas.People in the North West are most likely to spend online, with 22% of consumers in this region planning to do most of their gift shopping over the internet. Consumers in the South West (19%) and Scotland (18%) have also embraced online retail. Those in Northern Ireland (2%), the North East (7%) and Yorkshire (11%) are least likely. Men (18%) are more likely to use the internet for their Christmas shopping than women (13%).
Retailers are increasingly looking to take advantage of the continued rise of online shopping. The number of retailer's offering transactional websites has seen another steep rise this year. 81% now offer online stores, up from 71% last year and 51% in 2006, and the growing importance of online is evident with 90% of respondents saying they expect their online sales to grow as a proportion of total sales. However, online sales are still a small proportion of most retailers' revenue. 56% of retailers report online sales accounting for less than 10% of their total, although a further 22% report online sales contribution of over 25%.
Anish Patel, Director in Retail Consulting at Deloitte, said: “Online retailing is still growing, showing more resilience to the current economic storm. Internet retailers should be optimistic as price focused shoppers head online for convenience and to search for the best deals. Although online retailers are well positioned to make the best of a potentially lean Christmas, their online strategies need to be sophisticated and well executed, focusing on better customer insight and innovative marketing.”
Tagged as: online | retailing | ecommerce |
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