A very merry (online) Christmas

If you are a high street shop with no online presence look away now.  It is over for you. Apparently.

According to the latest report from Shopow (altogether now, who?), a whopping £7.76bn is expected to be spend online in the run up to Christmas as high street chains seek to quell losses over unsold stock.

And this is starting a new trend - social shopping. Again, apparently.

For those of you wondering who Shopow is - it is a site that "empowers online shoppers" and taps into the 'growing phenomenon' of social shopping.

The rest of the press release was one long marketing spiel about the wonders of sharing your shopping experiences over Twitter, Facebook etc - so I won't be going there. I'll leave you to discover Shopow for yourself. Enjoy.

But high street figures do make gloomy reading. According to the latest British Retail Consortium report, sales fell 1.6 per cent on a like for like basis (compared with 2010) for November, and hopes that consumers would start to treat themselves in December already seem to be fading with a few stores issuing profit warnings already.

Unfortunately people are just too worried about the doom and gloom over the economy, to be thinking about splashing out on expensive Christmas presents.

With things set to get even more difficult next year, it is little wonder.

2012 is definitely going to be an interesting year, although not necessarily in a good way.

I'm off to find all those online bargains that are just waiting for me to come along and buy them.

Wish me luck!