“Cyber Monday UK” saw a record number 112 million visits to online retail sites in one day.
Cyber Monday UK – Monday 3rd December was widely anticipated by information services company Experian and others to be the biggest online shopping of the year, pre-Christmas.
Insights from Hitwsie, Experian’s online competitiveness tool, show that British internet users made 112 million visits to retail sites on Monday 3rd December. Last year’s Cyber Monday UK saw 84.6 million visits, representing a 32% increase year on year.
In fact 2011’s biggest online shopping day of the year fell on Boxing Day with 92.6 million visits, indicating this record could again be broken later this month.
Biggest Winners
eBay, Amazon and Argos received the largest portion of online visits. They accounted for 30% of all online visits in the retail category and 62% of all retail visits went to the top 100 websites in the industry.
Mobile
Two mobile websites were amongst the fastest movers, eBay UK mobile and Argos mobile were third and sixth respectively fastest moving websites on Cyber Monday UK 2012. NotOnTheHighStreet.com managed to double its market share of visits from last year, indicating a desire for more unusual gifts this Christmas beyond the standard socks and cufflinks.
Opportunity
There is still time for retailers to maximise sales, as James Murray, Digital Insight Manager for Experian Marketing Services comments, “There is still plenty of shopping time between now and Christmas however, and in particular we are expecting a lot of last-minute panic buying online on Christmas Eve as consumers take advantage of click-and-collect services. Marketers need to be aware of these trends so they can engage with their customers at the right time to maximise sales in what could be a bumper Christmas year for online retail.”
