January 04, 2007 | Thursday

Online Christmas shopping lives up to hype

By Jackie Danicki - Blogger in News |Online Sales

It seems that the bumper holiday online shopping season that had been predicted did actually come to fruition:

[T]he online retail association the IMRG said sales in the 10 weeks to December 24 were expected to have risen by 50% to £7.5bn...The IMRG also said online sales now represent 10% of total retail sales in the UK, compared to just 0.5% in 2000.

Further:

Christmas shoppers flocked to the internet in 2006 with retail giants John Lewis and Tesco witnessing online sales up 60% and 30% on 2005. Tesco.com broke all online records with 1.3m buying food and presents on the site in the four weeks up to Christmas. Amazon.com also had its best Christmas with 4m items ordered worldwide on December 11 - a record for a single day.