What Were Four Million Britons Doing on Christmas Day?

Apart from opening presents and recovering from too much turkey, I was amazed to read that on 25^th December much of the nation was shopping on the internet!  It seems that almost 4m of us spent over £100m online on Christmas Day, according to figures.  What’s more,  Boxing Day was the busiest online shopping day of 2009  beating the pre-Christmas peak of Cyber Monday on 7th December.

We experienced the spike in online demand first-hand via one of our clients fashion bargain site, www.thefashionpixie.com/ which only launched mid December, but enjoyed more than 3,500 visits over the Christmas period alone. 

The figures from Experian Hitwise reveal that rather than spending the season of goodwill enjoying quality time relaxing with family and friends, for many of us the post-Christmas period was an opportunity to indulge in an online retail frenzy.  Apparently, the second busiest internet shopping day last year was 27^th December, and sales over 24^th and 25^th December increased by 36 per cent last year, compared with 39 per cent the previous year.

This is a dramatic illustration of how our shopping habits have changed.  While the economy and retail in particular has been in the doldrums, customer satisfaction with online shopping has continued to increase.  Research from ForeSee Results  shows that the UK’s top 40 online retailers enjoyed a six per cent increase in customer satisfaction over the Christmas period compared with last year.

Mind you, faced with the option of battling through a blizzard to face the crowds or sitting in the comfort of your own home with a mince pie and the best bargains nationwide just a click away, I know which I would choose…