Online retailers benefited as shoppers logged on during the Christmas festivities, with December 26, Boxing Day, and December 27 seeing the largest traffic spikes. Multichannel retailers, said analysts from Experian Hitwise, saw the biggest gains as shoppers researched ahead of trips to the high street.

Customers are increasingly satisfied with a small number of leading online retailers – but there’s a widening gap between those leaders and ‘the rest’, says new research from ForeSee Results.

Online sales rose in November, according to IMRG figures, and are expected to stay high in the January sales, says the Centre for Retail Research, in a study for Kelkoo. Then, however, it predicts retail sales will fall as shoppers adopt austerity spending measures in 2011.

Ecommerce is expected to grow fast over the year ahead. So just what are the areas that retailers will be concentrating on in 2011? Pontus Kristiansson, chief executive and co-founder of Avail Intelligence gives us some ideas.

Online sales gave a boost to womenswear company Alexon as it warned that snow was likely to hit its full-year profits as much as £1.5m.

Gaming consoles were among the most searched-for entertainment products in the run up to Christmas shopping season, analysis from Greenlight has found. Its Entertainment Retail report for October showed that Xbox was more searched for as a term than either DVDs or CDs.

Only 7% of the UK’s largest ecommerce retailers use email to follow up on abandoned baskets, says research from RedEye. The behavioural email specialist says they are missing out on potential hot prospects as a result.

A study by YouGov on behalf of Callcredit Information Group finds that typically only 12% of UK shoppers are planning to shop on mobile this Christmas, while 41% of consumers say they can’t or won’t since they either believe that they don’t have the ability to or that the technology is not secure

As 2010 comes to a close, its is worth noting that smartphones now account for 37% of total phone shipments in Western Europe and, if the market continues as it is currently, Android will overtake Symbian to become the leading smartphone operating system (OS) in the region

Shoppers, many of whom wrongly believe it’s now too late to order online, are set to head for the high street this weekend, according to new research from Kelkoo. But etailers are keen to point out that orders can still be taken as late as December 23. Meanwhile ONS figures show that online’s share of the market is growing fast.

Social shopping will be a major factor in UK online shopping in 2011, says ATG. The technology company has carried out research in the US which shows social networks are playing an increasingly important role in shopping that’s set to arrive in the UK during the course of this year.

As the online market continues to mature next year, UK online retailers will need to be innovative in order to keep ahead of competition, says Simon Bird, director of retail partnerships at voucher code website Savoo.co.uk. He discusses the various challenges online retailers have faced this year, in order to capture consumer attention

New Look has come top in a checkout usability study from web design and accessibility agency Nomensa. The retailer’s site was described as ‘streets ahead’ in the research.

US fashion and lifestyle retailer Anthropologie has introduced rich media technology from Adobe Scene 7 to its UK website. It says the ability to zoom into the detail of products helps to turn browsers into purchasers.

Retailers Laura Ashley and Sports Direct both reported a rise in their online sales as they updated the City today. Both said they believed full-year results would meet, or be ahead of, expectations despite an uncertain economy.

UK Shoppers are predicted to spend some £6.4billion online this Christmas with as much as 18% of that coming from mobile, so companies not supporting the mobile channel look set to lose out dramatically. And if the ‘Sock Index’ is anything to go by, only a quarter of top fashion retailers are supporting mobile this season

eBay shoppers certainly embraced mobile on Sunday 12 December – henceforth known as Mobile Sunday – logging the company’s highest ever one-day mobile sales at $13million worldwide – a rise of 165% globally year on year

One third of the world’s most visited websites takes more than a second to load on an iPad according to research conducted by Zeus Technology – which is bad news for anyone investing in the Apple device as a ‘shop window’ as a study by Amazon finds that for every 100 milliseconds of latency in page delivery time you typically get a 1% drop in sales

Motoring accessory retailer Halfords has upgraded its mobile optimized website, launched in August, to make it transactional in time for Christmas – allowing the retailer to offer its entire product range to consumers on mobile, as it does on its e-commerce site

Fashion clothing brand Lyle & Scott – in my youth beloved of golfers and casuals, but currently Drapers Young Fashion Brand of the Year – has rolled out a mobile optimized website to woo young dandies through their preferred medium