Brits save thousands by shopping online, survey finds

Thursday, August 5, 2010 - 13:15 by Graham Miller

UK consumers who shop online have saved around £27,000 each over the past decade according to a new report published this week.

The figures are averaged out across everyone who buys goods on the internet and the most significant savings were made by anyone who bought their groceries online, with in store prices of £71.22 dropping to an average of £48.98 when sought online. This would result in a saving of nearly £12,000 over ten years.

With a wealth of other savings made online when shopping for everything from holidays to car insurance, people will have totted up savings of nearly £3000 on a variety of goods and services.

Over 3000 people were polled by Elephant.co.uk and it found that 62 per cent of respondents went online when they wanted to buy anything, rather than heading to the high street. Most UK consumers were also convinced that online shopping offered money saving opportunities, with 90 per cent claiming to have found bargains on the internet.

Despite the popularity of online shopping, many retailers believe that it could be made much easier for consumers and this is why payment card firm Visa has launched its new RightCliq service.

Visa found that many people were only able to shop for goods by bookmarking individual items or even using pen and paper to write down what they want. As a result it created RightCliq to give people a central hub for safe shopping online, from which wishlists can be generated and stored from multiple retailers.

The service will even make safe shopping online easier by automatically completing the payment card forms at retailers' online checkouts so that you do not have to type in your details each time you want to make a purchase. This hybrid price comparison and online shopping service is an interesting and arguably unique addition to the market.