Online shopping account for 10% of retail sales
Published January 20th, 2006
The value of goods sold over the internet rose by 50% this Christmas compared with last year, figures out today show, in a sign of the growing power of the internet in the retail sector.The figures, from trade body the Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG), confirm a prediction the group made before Christmas and show goods worth £19.2bn were sold through the internet in Britain last year, an increase of 34% over the previous year and up from just £800m in 2000. Of the £19.2bn, leisure travel booked over the internet totalled £2.5bn.
“We are forecasting that internet sales will rise by another 36% this year to around £26bn,” said IMRG spokesman James Roper, adding that web sales now accounted for about 10% of all retail sales.
Sales over the internet in the 10 weeks to Christmas day were around £5bn, according to the IMRG, half as much again as the £3.33bn recorded in the same period of 2004.
The group said, though, that its figures did not yet include music downloads or anything sold on ebay. But they did count things such as air tickets bought from easyjet or Ryanair.
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