UK shoppers to spend €20 billion online this Christmas

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UK online shoppers are expected to burn bigger holes in their wallets than their European peers in the run up to Christmas as they're tipped to generate a mammoth €20 billion in online sales during the period, according to the latest figures from Forrester Research.

Some 27 million UK shoppers will spend more than €700 each during the holiday retail therapy season, adding a great deal of weight to activity elsewhere in Europe that is expected to, collectively, generate €51 billion in online sales.

Alongside the UK, but ahead of other Europeans, consumers in Germany and Sweden also have a healthy appetite for ecommerce, with around 70 per cent of their respective populations comfortable with the high street of clicks as well as bricks. This is in contrast to shoppers in Italy and Spain, where the figure is less than a third (30 per cent).

"The significant growth in online retail is due in part to increasing consumer confidence and familiarity with the web," said Forrester Research's senior analyst Victoria Bracewell Lewis.

"58 percent of European online consumers will make a web purchase this year."

In terms of actual sales during the period, Germany trails slightly behind the UK's lead and is expected to generate €12 billion during the period, followed by France with €6.5 billion, Italy with €2.1 billion and then the

Netherlands with €1.9 billion.

"Online retailers have reason to celebrate during this Christmas season," said the Interactive Media in Retail Group's (IMRG) chief executive James Roper.

"The significant growth forecast from Forrester can be attributed to many factors, the most significant being the easy access to broadband that the majority of people now enjoy, and the extensive range of goods available via the internet, thanks to major investment in the channel by merchants during the past year."

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