UK trails in online sales

US Websites are far more mature than those in the UK, managing to generate nearly five times more revenue from online transactions.

According to research by Datamonitor, US transactional sites received an average revenue of $50,000 during May, while European Web sales lagged behind at just $11,000 worth of online sales.

Datamonitor found internet shopping was a more widely accepted practice in the US and that online consumers spent more on each purchase than their European counterparts. Internet access is also significantly cheaper and often faster in the US.

The findings highlighted a number of ways in which European retailers could achieve the same success as their US competitors. They include improving ordering facilities on Web sites and giving buyers a wider choice of payment methods.

The report suggested European online retailers should be looking to generate revenue from other areas such as advertising, subscriptions, content and internet service provider agreements.

Almost a third of transactional sites in Europe and the US are generating non-sales related revenues, according to Datamonitor. The research showed that although the additional revenue stream for online retailers was still insignificant when compared to overall revenues, there has been a change in the way businesses views the e-commerce market.

Datamonitor's findings also indicated that large transactional sites are more likely to generate non-sales revenues as they tend to have highly defined e-commerce strategies.

The survey revealed that 60 per cent of large transactional sites generated non-sales revenues in May, compared to just 28 per cent and 18 per cent for small and medium-sized sites respectively.