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Festive shopping shifts online as high street flounders

Monday, December 30, 2013 - 13:43 by Graham Miller

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Things are looking bad for the Great British high street again this year, with the latest figures showing that fewer people were out and about at bricks and mortar stores in the final days of the Christmas shopping period than ever before in 2013.

The storms which hit the country in the past week not only kept people indoors and disrupted travel, but also meant that consumers were keener to indulge in shopping online, rather than risk getting cold and wet elsewhere.

Springboard revealed that the number of people heading to real world outlets was down by 4.7 per cent, year on year, although there was a small 1.5 per cent boost on December 26th.

Perhaps the biggest issue with this dip is that retailers had been hoping that people were holding out for a last minute spending spree, which would see the weekend before Christmas becoming a stellar period for sales. This did not happen, even while e-commerce activities were up, so the high street continues to hang in the balance.

John Lewis did not see a particularly big increase in its high street sales on the cusp of Christmas, but it did manage to perform better online, according to spokesperson, Paula Nickolds. She also said that 76 per cent of online traffic the firm's website received on Boxing Day was generated by mobile devices, which indicates the power that smartphones and tablets now wield.

The ingrained habits of the festive period are particularly conducive to m-commerce usage, because people plonk themselves in front of the TV for long periods and, inevitably, get their portable devices out to use while they watch, which leads to plenty of opportunities for safe shopping online.

This Christmas has proven that the UK's love of e-commerce may yet result in the demise of the high street, or at least a major change in its form and function.