The number of internet shoppers has reached its highest level yet, growing by 1.3 million from May 2004, taking the total number of websites consumers to 16 million, says a new survey.
Over the past few years, the popularity of e-shopping has grown as people increasingly use this as a tool for finding summer holidays, buying household items and gifts.
According to the BMRB’s Internet Monitor survey, the average online spend in the past six months amongst e-shoppers also increased from £572 to £605, with total annual internet spend now at £19.4 billion, a 10% rise since August last year.
Internet auction website, eBay, maintains its position as the most visited e-commerce site in the last four weeks, with 51% of the online population visiting, citing an increase of 5% since last May. It also continues to enjoy the highest awareness of all the e-commerce sites measured by Internet Monitor, with 91%, compared to 78% a year ago.
Online retailer, Amazon.co.uk, moved back up to the number two spot with 37%, taking over from catalogue group Argos, which landed the number three position, despite seeing a slight improvement to website visitor numbers.
Tesco remains the most-visited supermarket site, with 23% of online shoppers visiting in the last four weeks, followed by Sainsburys at 12% and Asda at 9%.
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