UK consumers continued to spend freely on the internet during January, according to new figures from the Interactive Media in Retail Group.
This is all the more creditable considering that mainstream retailing fell by 44% from £29.2 billion in December to £16.5 billion last month. It would appear that many consumers preferred to go online than run the gauntlet of the New Year sales and as a result, e-commerce accounted for 6% of the total UK retail market in January.