More than half of internet users in Great Britain who did not shop online last Christmas intend to do so this year, in another indication that the web is becoming more widely accepted as a source for goods and services purchases.
According to the November survey of 12,500 British consumers by
Lightspeed Research, around one third of the country’s internet population intends to make purchases via the internet during this holiday season. Taking the average spend of £140 per person last year, this increase will bring almost £600 million of additional expenditure to the ‘online high street’, according to Lightspeed.
The survey found that there is no demographic bias in the profile of those adopting e-commerce this year, suggesting that acceptance is increasingly uniformly across all internet users.
With the additional 40% of respondents who said they had shopped online last year and intend to do so again this year, the online spend is set to grow by 78% this Christmas. Of those who purchased online last year, 52% said that they would spend the same as last year; 35% intend to spend more and 13%, less.
In total there is an estimated potential of £1.4 billion spend for Christmas shopping online this holiday season.
The British home internet user universe is estimated to be 14.2 million people; within this there are a potential 9.8 million online shoppers, says the survey.
