Christmas Day itself spending an estimated £228million as stores
launch their sales early.
Retail experts predict six million transactions will be processed on
Christmas Day as people search the web for the best early deals.
Online shopping has already broken all previous records in December
and the trend is expected to continue over the festive period.
Britons will spend 45 million hours shopping online today (Christmas
Eve) and on Boxing Day, according to retail forecasters.
Christmas Eve will see the largest increase with 105 million visits to
retail websites expected, up 22 per cent compared to the same day last
year.
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Christmas Day will see an increase of nine per cent to 117 million
visits while Boxing Day will see 118 million visits to shopping sites,
up by five per cent year-on-year.
James Murray, digital insight manager for Experian Marketing Services
said: "Christmas 2013 has consistently outperformed 2012 on virtually
every single shopping day this December, with online visits from
Christmas Eve through to Boxing Day expected to be up from last year,
a record breaking Cyber Monday and the emergence of the even busier
Middle Cyber Monday.
"Shopping habits are changing, with Christmas Day becoming a
significant shopping day during the period.
"As a result, we anticipate a more sustained shopping pattern during
this period, moving away from the traditional peaks and troughs
usually evident during holiday season."
The UK is on course to reach more than three billion visits to
shopping websites this December, which will be the first time this has
happened in a single month.
Many retailers are bringing their Boxing Day sales forward to
Christmas Day and even Christmas Eve.
Harvey Nichols, Debenhams, House of Fraser will all start slashing
prices online on Christmas Eve with John Lewis launching its sale at
5pm that day.
Argos and Amazon's online sales start on Christmas Day.
Amazon is predicting its busiest Christmas Day ever having seen sales
on December 25 rise five-fold in five years.
A British Retail Consortium spokesman said: "While the sales
historically start across the board on Boxing Day, the picture has
become more blurred with the rapid evolution of multichannel and
varied practice for different retailers.
"Christmas Day itself is now a key shopping day thanks to e-commerce,
social media and rocketing smartphone and tablet ownership, and many
retailers will be responding to that demand with early offers and a
head start on the sales."
Retailers from across the spectrum have reported bigger online sales
than ever before in the run-up to this Christmas.
Cyber Monday on December 2 attracted a record-breaking 115 million
retail website visits while the following Monday saw even more,
reaching 120 million.
Many Britons are now using their smartphones to do their Christmas
shopping with mobile traffic expected to take over desktop traffic as
Christmas Day draws to a close.
John Lewis said half the visits to its website last Christmas were
from mobile phones with a peak at 9pm while 920,000 people used their
phones to access the site on Boxing Day.
The store is predicting one million visits to johnlewis.com from
mobiles this Boxing Day.
Mark Lewis, online director at John Lewis, said: "Mobile is set to be
the shining star of Christmas 2013.
"Shopping is becoming much more of a social experience with people
browsing, purchasing and sharing ideas with others using their mobile
phones and tablets.
"We expect this to increase dramatically during the festive period as
customers shop on the go and we anticipate that Christmas Day will be
the tipping point for mobile."
British employees are estimated to have spent seven hours and ten
minutes doing Christmas shopping online when they should have been
working this year, according to a recent study.
A quarter of those questioned admitted to spending about half an hour
each day secretly shopping online, according to job website
Monster.co.uk.
More than one in ten confessed to searching for presents for more than
an hour a day during working hours.
Andrew Sumner, managing director at Monster.co.uk, said: "Today's
workers are busier than ever, with technology now making it harder to
truly disconnect from work.
"This means the line between our work and personal lives is becoming
increasingly blurred.
"It is perhaps less surprising then, that workers would take care of
their personal obligations during work hours."
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