Retailers predict new Cyber Monday

Online retailers are predicting that today could become Britain’s biggest pre-Christmas shopping day as a new survey reveals UK consumers are embracing technology to buy on the web far faster than other countries.

Retailers now claim today is the 'real' Cyber Monday Photo: ALAMY

Research by KPMG shows 77 per cent of British shoppers prefer to buy goods like CDs, DVDs, books and video games online - compared with 65 per cent globally.

Data collected from 9,600 consumers aged between the ages of 16 and 65, across 31 countries, also found that 74 per cent of UK consumers said they were more likely to buy flights and holidays online, and six in 10 used some form of online grocery shopping.

In the US, by contrast, the same numbers would book flights but only 21 per cent said they were more likely to buy groceries online.

Tudor Aw, KPMG's European head of technology, said: "From buying goods on their mobile phones to keeping up with friends on social networks, consumers are increasingly reliant on a range of technologies that perform important - yet often overlapping – tasks.

“This new 'converged lifestyle' will have huge implication for retailers.”

Yesterday, Amazon, the world's largest online retailer, said it hopes that today’s online spending will match last year's “Cyber Monday”, when more than 2.3 million items were bought in just 24 hours.

Previously it had been suggested that last Monday would be the biggest day for online retailers but the managing director of Amazon's UK division, Christopher North, said that past experience actually shows that it is the first Monday of December.

He was backed up by the British Retail Consortium and other retail firms including John Lewis.

Mr North said: "Mondays remain the busiest shopping day in the run-up to Christmas, but every day of that week will see high sales."

The early Christmas shopping spree is said to be driven by a number of factors including the date of many consumers’ last payday before Christmas, which for millions of people was in the last week. Fears that bad weather may affect the delivery dates of presents might also contribute to the rise.

Andrew Starkey, the head of e-logistics at Interactive Media in Retail Group, forecast that £3.72bn would be spent online during the two weeks ending 12 December.

He said: "Last Monday was the first peak in the year, 5 December is expected to be bigger but, while 12 December is unlikely to fall off too much, I believe this early rise shows that consumers are becoming wary of bad weather affecting deliveries – last Christmas deliveries that were meant to take one to two days became far longer."

Maureen Hinton, a retail analyst at the research firm Verdict, said: "We find on a weekly basis that people aren't using credit – they spend wages and savings instead. I think this weekend we'll see a big rise."

Meanwhile, internet users are expected spend more than 350 million hours shopping online for Christmas presents during December, according to figures from Experian Hitwise.

Britons will spend £13.4bn in cyber shops this Christmas, the Centre for Retail Research has found, with purchases made from a mobile phone accounting for at least 12 per cent of online spending.

"Lego" is expected to be the most searched for toy product throughout the country during the festive period.

December 19, also a Monday, is expected to be the busiest day for online food sales as people scramble to do some last minute grocery shopping before Christmas Day.

Social media usage, in the lead up to and on the day of Christmas, is expected to be the highest yet, with British web users expected to spend more than 25 million hours online on December 25 alone.

James Murray, marketing research analyst at Experian Hitwise, said: “Christmas 2011 looks set to be another record-breaker for many of the online sectors and particularly for retail.”