Yuletide online spending beats forecasts

Christmas shoppers logged on in droves to more than double sales compared to 2005, retail market watchdog claims

Consumer sales taken over the web in the run up to Christmas shattered initial forecasts, according to new data from the Internet Measurement Retail Group (IMRG).

British consumers shelled out £7.7bn online in the ten weeks leading up to Christmas Eve, up by more than a half (54 per cent) on 2005 and nearly double the amount they spent two years previously.

The IMRG’s Electrical Index soared 95 per cent year-on-year as sales hit £700m in November, with December takings also up 50 per cent on the previous year’s tally.

Jonathan Wall, marketing director at BT-owned e-tailer Dabs, highlighted HD-ready LCDs, digital storage and wireless notebooks as among the big pre-Christmas sellers as the Digital Home ideal hit home with consumers.

He added: “Dabs saw an excellent end to our Christmas trading period for consumers in December with sales up by more than 50 per cent in comparison to 2005.

“Our busiest day of the month was the 12th, which is a full week later
than last year, proving that customers are now trusting the internet for
reliable deliveries more than ever before."

Not all VARs working in the internet arena made it through the yuletide period unscathed, however, with online VAR Excite entering administration in December (CRN, 18 December).

Despite this, the strength of the figures surprised even IMRG. Total e-tail sales hit £3.6bn in December, half a billion pounds more than it had predicted.

“Sales demand outstripped supply capacity by a significant margin, otherwise sales would have been higher still,” said Joe Tucker, IMRG’s managing director.