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News Release from: Logan Tod | Subject: online shopping
Edited by the Marketingservicestalk Editorial
Team on 22 January 2008
Xmas 08 set to raise records for online
shopping
E-tailers enjoyed a record-breaking rise in Christmas shopping online last year, according to the latest figures from the IMRG, which revealed a GBP15.2 billion spend.
This growth is expected to continue, with over 50 per cent of the UK's online shoppers intending to increase their online spend in the run-up to Christmas 2008 - according to the latest Logan Tod Online Shopping Index "More than 80 per cent of adults in the UK shopped online in 2007, which is a rise of 5 per cent on 2006's figures," said Matthew Tod, Chief Executive at Logan Tod
"We believe that the key drivers for Christmas 2008's predicted growth will be the older age groups; the over-40s and over-50s are still discovering the benefits of shopping online and this trend will doubtless continue to next year.
"It is worth noting, however, that the 35-44 age group should still be the ones doing the most shopping online overall.
"It is the 44+ age group where the bigger opportunity lies to drive growth for most store owners" added Tod.
Last year's Index from the e-commerce consultancy estimated that the largest area of growth in adult shoppers would be amongst light shoppers and this year's figures confirm the prediction - revealing an increase of almost 15 per cent in this category.
There was a less than 10 per cent increase in both the medium and heavy shopper categories.
"It's encouraging to see how accurate the Index is at predicting the coming year", said Tod.
"We said the key growth area would be in light shoppers, although even we didn't anticipate such a large increase in this particular segment".
As with last year's results, many UK shoppers find the convenience of 24-hour shopping (67 per cent) and lack of crowds (68 per cent) the key benefits to shopping online over the Christmas period.
However, the most important consideration for shoppers (69 per cent of those questioned) is price.
"Price seems to be more of an issue with consumers than in the previous Online Shopping Index report", said Tod.
"This means that online competition is really heating up and for e-tailers to continue to be competitive they must ensure their sites focus on combining value with best possible service to the key age groups to grow revenue during Christmas 2008".
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