UK Is Number One For Online Shopping

Sales from online shopping reached €18.5 billion (£12.8 billion) in the UK last year, according to a new report from Mintel.

The company looked at retailing across five countries including the UK, Germany and France.

The second biggest online spender in the Mintel report was Germany, with sales reaching €13 billion last year.

It was followed by France (€7 billion, £5.6 billion), Italy (€1.1 billion, £874 million) and Spain (€1 billion, £794 million).

Director of retail research at Mintel, Richard Perks, said: “The UK has by far and away the most developed online market in Europe. The main reason for this, is the sophisticated online offering of the UK’s food retailers and the fact that so many of us now more than happy to turn to the internet to do our weekly shop.

“Amazon is the only pureplay internet retailer in the top ten, while five of the top ten retailers are mail order groups that have developed their ecommerce operations as a means of stemming the decline of traditional big book mail order and reducing overheads.”

Mintel: http://www.mintel.com