UK Acclaimed As European ‘Capital of E-Commerce’

The UK consolidated its position as Europe’s leading e-commerce market in the run-up to Christmas 2002 with 60% of the online population accessing a retail site during December.

Nielsen//NetRatings calculates that 12.8 million UK internet users visited an e-commerce site at some point last month, an increase of 3.7 million on the figure for December 2001.

“These figures represent visitors, not necessarily buyers,” commented analyst Tom Ewing. “But the UK’s conversion rate of browsers to buyers is also the highest in Europe so it’s a safe bet that actual online spend has risen over the year. The figures suggest that shopping online is now an everyday part of more than half of the British online population, particularly at Christmas. In fact, the UK has become Europe’s capital of e-Commerce.”

Ewing’s statement is supported by earlier research which found that the UK had the highest conversion rate of surfers to actual shoppers. Amazon and eBay are the country’s most popular e-commerce sites with Argos, the top online high street retailer, a distant third.

“This research shows that consumers want to order from brands that they trust – be that the well-known and established internet pure-plays like Amazon and eBay, or from high street names. The rise of price comparison sites like dealtime.co.uk and kelkoo.co.uk, as well as eBay.co.uk which has continually performed well, indicates that the UK’s online consumers are using the internet to find bargains as well as for convenience,” said Ewing.

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