May 31, 2007 | Thursday

Online spending up £2.7 billion in 2006

By Jackie Danicki - Blogger in Marketing |News |Online Sales

Yes, up by £2.7 billion, not up to £2.7 billion: Online sales grew to £10.9 billion last year.

Further, analysts expect the online spending market to double its 2006 value by 2011, exceeding £28 billion, and for UK online sales to triple over the next four years.

Verdict said the growth was due to faster and cheaper internet access and coincides with a time when many retailers on the high street are seeing demand fall.

If I were a CEO of a company that sells online, I might take this report as an opportunity to ask my marketing director or brand manager how much of that multi-billion-pound pie they expect to make its way into our company’s coffers. I might also ask what the plan was for ensuring the greatest possible sales via the web.

How is your company making sure that your products and services are being found - and bought - online by the millions of potential customers who are searching for them every day? It’s a question worth having an answer for (preferably the right one), whether you’re the CEO, the marketing director, the brand manager, or anyone else in the organisation who would like to keep his or her job. Those tens of billions of pounds are on the table to win or lose.

(If you wouldn’t mind some help with this one, feel free to call call Peter Revell on 020 7952 8000, or email him on for a few suggestions.)