Online accounted for 15p in every £1 spent in 2007

Research out today shows record spending online over Christmas grew its share of UK retail spending to its largest ever, amounting to 15 pence in every pound.

The first figures to assess the growth of online shopping in the UK last year found full year sales had increased to £46.6 billion, up 54 per cent on the £30.2 billion recorded for 2006.

The Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) and Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index also found £15.2 billion was spent online in October to December, with nearly 50 per cent higher levels of spending in the key December pre-trading Christmas period.

Anthoula Madden, Capgemini UK's consumer products and retail team vice president, said: "Online growth has proven robust and sustainable over the past year, increasing its share of UK retail from 10p in the pound to 15p."

"While we are yet to see High Street sales decline there can be no doubt online is growing its share at the expense of bricks and mortar retailers and we believe that this trend will continue," Madden said.

The research did also find that the rate of online shopping slowed towards the end of the year, with only 0.2 per cent increase in demand from November to December.

But Christmas shopping peaked in the first week of December, later than previous years. However, Christmas Day itself attracted four million shoppers online while the High Street was closed.

Madden added: "Online retailing is developing so quickly that those who do not yet have an online presence really will get left behind."

Electrical online retailers made the greatest gains over their High Street counterparts, seeing a 60 per cent gain in sales during December. This reflects the tough trading reported by High Street retailer with Currys and PC World, DSG International, who issued a profit warning earlier this month.

The clothing sector followed electrical goods with a 28 per cent sales increase on the same point last year and the beers, wines and spirits sector showed an increase of more than 20 per cent.

The IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index is compiled with analysis from Capgemini; data from UK payment services provider SecureTrading, which tracks millions of transactions from 1,500 UK online retailers; and traffic data from the digital market research firm eDigitalResearch, using a sample of over 250 million page views per month from leading UK retailers that have its survey code installed on their websites.

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