skip to main content

2,634 shops listed | Last updated: Thursday, March 28, 2024

Monitor Add a site

Eighty eight percent of Brits will shop online this Christmas

Monday, December 2, 2013 - 12:05 by David Aiken

Share on

A new report published by PayPal has found that almost nine out of 10 consumers in the UK are intending to buy at least some of their gifts online this Christmas.

This makes Britain an international leader when it comes to festive e-commerce usage, heading off rivals including Germany and the US, according to the Daily Mail.

Forty eight per cent of respondents to the study said that they will exclusively be using safe shopping online to buy items for the Christmas period, which is higher than the 42 per cent of Americans who made similar assertions.

A third of those questioned said that online shopping appealed to them because they wanted to skip the queues at the checkout, which are guaranteed to form in high street retailers this year.

Analysts anticipate that about half of the UK's entire population will have been using the internet to check out gift items over the past weekend. And, of course, December 2nd is earmarked as Mega Monday, which means millions of people will be indulging in some e-commerce activities today.

The downside of the popularity of online shopping is of course that the high street has been hit with lower sales. But there are signs that the companies which choose to adapt to a multichannel environment are still able to operate through e-commerce channels and bricks and mortar stores, so it is really about finding a balance between the two.

Forty six per ent of respondents to the PayPal survey said that they carry out e-commerce in the evening, with a third saying they even do it while lying in bed. This late night approach to online shopping is an intriguing trend, but one which is also accompanied by plenty of people admitting to using retail sites while at work.