UK shoppers to spend STG40bn online

12-11-2007

by Silicon.com

Online sales will reach STG40 billion this year with cyber shoppers forking out STG162 billion by 2020, research predicts.

Online sales accounted for only 2 percent of the total retail spend in 2002 but price-comparison site uSwitch.com predicts it will reach 16 percent by the end of this year and more than 40 percent by 2020.

And going online also makes more financial sense as UK consumers could save more than STG13 billion per year by shopping this way, with each household saving STG500 per year on everyday shopping and essential bills, according to figures from the Centre for Economics and Business Research.

In total, 13.5 million consumers are shopping online and spending an average of four days per year doing so, said uSwitch.com.

But the vast majority (86 percent) of online consumers suffer some sort of difficulty in making a purchase, with 37 percent of those who experience problems with an online transaction preferring to abandon it altogether, according to a recent survey conducted by Harris Interactive for customer service software specialist Tealeaf.

Gemma Simpson writes for Silicon.com.

Reprinted with permission from Silicon.com