Online Shopping in U.K. Grows 54%

Online shopping in the U.K. totaled 46.6 billion pounds ($91.2 billion) last year, up 54% over 30.2 billion pounds ($59.1 billion) in 2006, according to the Internet Marketing in Retail (IMRG) Capgemini E-Retail Sales Index.

Within such sectors as electrical goods, the research indicated that growth in online sales did come at the expense of brick-and-mortar retailers, the study said.

December's online sales were nearly 50% higher than last year's, although demand for online shopping tailed off significantly towards the end of 2007 with December's index only 0.2% higher than November's. This reflects the credit crunch across the country's economy, according to the study.

The data also revealed that peak online shopping occurred in the first week of December where there was a 9% increase in all-online sales. This was later than in previous years, suggesting that consumers are making the most of pre Christmas discounting and delaying purchases until the onset of the sales, the study noted.