Happy Cyber Monday; we hope your online tills are ringing! According to a piece in the Independent quoting figures from Experian, some £320 million will be spent online today with consumers making 115 million website visits, an increase of 36 per cent on last year. The article also mentions Visa, which said it will handle 6.8 million card transactions today, an increase of 21 per cent on last year. In research from eCoupons.com, the creator of the CyberMonday.co.uk website, that figure is even higher. It predicts Brits will spend £550 million and spend 15 million hours shopping online–almost 15 minutes per person.
Nearly one fifth (18 per cent) of all Christmas shopping is expected to take place today with consumers spending an average of £102 each, according to a study commissioned by online accreditation business Trusted Shops. But not everyone is buying into the concept, Kris Bromley, managing director of gifts and gadgets website Firebox, believes Cyber Monday is “dated and irrelevant”. According to him, Cyber Monday is old hat, “we’re expecting
strong sales to continue right through December, not just on one particular day”. Mobile Fun, an online retailer of mobile phone accessories shares a similar view. It is shipping purchases up to 12 noon on 23rd December and expects a busy trading period throughout December.
Finally, Simon Jackson, chief commercial officer at NetNames, believes the real surge won’t be Cyber Monday, but rather Boxing Day (26th December). He predicts “that there will be 140 million visits to online retail sites and approximately £500 million spent as retailers launch post-Christmas sales in the UK”.
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