Some £45 billion is expected to be spent online in Britain this year, which equates to around £1,000 per person, thedrum.com reports.
According to new research from coupon platform RetailMeNot (which owns vouchercodes.co.uk), online sales are set to grow by 16 per cent during 2014, which would make for a total spend of £45 billion. Comparatively, the offline sales sector is expected to grow by just 2.4 per cent during 2013.
Specifically, Brits are expected to make an average of 18 purchases online each year, spending around £59 each time.
RetailMeNot also found that, whilst Germany and France had larger markets in terms of population size, the UK market were bigger spenders. Last year, total spend reached £38.8 billion, which was larger than all others – even those where more people shopped online.
Looking ahead to 2014, UK online spend is expected to account for around a third of the combined total for eight European countries: Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Spain, Poland, the Netherlands and Sweden.
Commenting on the findings, RetailMeNot senior vice president Giulio Montemagno told ibtimes.co.uk that mobile should be a pertinent consideration for retailers as these totals continue to grow. This, he added, could also merge the on- and off-line retail offering.
“With such a competitive retail environment, it’s more important than ever that retailers look to mobile devices and web to incentivise shoppers to make purchases online and in store.
“Successful retailers will consider the internet not as a threat but as a powerful complement which can help them increase their sales.”
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