December 27th sees retail boom

Tuesday, December 27, 2011 - 13:45 by Graham Miller

Bank holidays, rail strikes and Christmas cash colluded to create what analysts predict was the busiest shopping day of the year on Tuesday this week, according to the Telegraph.

Up to 12 million people spent cash shopping online and the high street on December 27th, which is equivalent to a quarter of the population over the age of 10 getting involved in the mayhem.

While those who chose to visit the high street had to deal with tube problems in the capital and congested roads, online shoppers were the real winners because most major sites were prepared for the increased traffic and could still operate smoothly.

It is predicted that about 95 million page impressions were made on e-commerce sites during the 24 hours of Tuesday.

Experts say that this is about 15 million more hits than were recorded during the same period in 2010, which indicates that retail records for safe shopping online have once again been broken.

Interestingly the increased high street sales are actually being attributed to tourists visiting from Japan and China, many of whom will splash out large amounts of cash for expensive goods at bricks and mortar outlets.

The most expensive item purchased on Boxing Day was a diamond necklace discounted to almost £8,500, after originally being priced at over £18,000 in Selfridges. This was actually picked up by a visitor to the country, presumably as a particularly decadent souvenir.

The fact that Boxing Day fell on a Monday this year is seen as an important factor in the boom by insider James Murray, who said that this was a traditionally busy day.

Mr Murray also pointed out that research suggests that online sales are not having as detrimental impact on the high street as some have been arguing in recent weeks, with e-commerce complementing rather than counteracting real world stores.