December 04 2006

Highest takings forecast for lunchtime today

Lunchtime today will be the hour when consumers spend the most on internet shopping this year, forecasts IMRG, with today marking the start of what is predicted to be the highest grossing week of the year.

Between 1 and 2 o'clock today, £14 million will be spent online - over 3 times the £4 million per hour being spent online during the rest of the run up to Christmas. Another peak in sales is forecast for later in the day once people arrive home after work (and once the shops have shut). Spending between 7 and 9 in the evening will be "80% as high as lunchtime," said James Roper ceo of IMRG. In total, consumers are expected to spend over £183 million online today.

Competition for consumers online is high this year, but some would-be customers have been spending their money with US retailers reports the Sunday Telegraph. One US chain has seen sales from UK consumers grow this year by 163% (and with the exchange rate getting close to $2 against the pound, US consumers won't be reciprocating).

IMRG press release follows:

Today, Monday 4 December will be the biggest UK online shopping day of the year, with sales worth £180 million, more than double the £82 million average for 2006. 38% of those sales will take place outside of traditional shopping hours, either before 9am or after 6pm.

The peak online shopping hour of 2006 will be today, between 1-2pm, when goods worth £14 million will be bought. This compares with an average of £4 million-per-hour being spent online in the 10-week run up to Christmas.

IMRG's CEO, James Roper, commented: "The online shopping peak is pulled forward each Christmas by millions of people who rely on the internet for their key shopping items, and so shop early to have the best chance of goods being in stock, and successful delivery. Monday 4 December will be the biggest e-sales day of 2006, and it is interesting to note that more than a third of online shopping takes place either before or after traditional shopping hours. In the evening peak today, we estimate that online sales will be worth £11.7 million pounds per hour."

eDigitalResearch.com's director, Chris Russell, said: "The evening internet shopping peak is a recent phenomenon that has become possible with consumers' acquisition of broadband at home. The evening peak - between 7 and 9pm - is now 80% as high as lunchtime's, when the highest sales are still recorded, between 1 and 2pm."

SHOP TILL YOU SLEEP How and when consumers make their e-sales is rapidly changing.New research shows that on weekdays, internet shopping peaks at lunchtime, between 1 and 2pm, then stays strong right through to 5pm. Following a dip between 6-7pm, it picks up again strongly to a new high, between 7-9pm, then falls away sharply after 10pm. On Monday, the biggest online shopping day of the week, the evening peak is 80% (78.9%) as high as the lunchtime peak.

In the early years of online shopping, there was just one huge peak at lunchtime, as people bought goods via the high-speed internet connection at their workplace. Domestic broadband connections first became available in 2000, and soon proved popular. In recent years, as prices fell, take-up rates approaching a million per quarter became the norm, though this rate is slowing now. According to the latest data, 63% of UK households are currently connected to the internet and 44% of households have a broadband connection (source: Eurostat); more than three-quarters of UK internet connections are broadband (source: ONS).

Now that people have the option of shopping at home in the early morning or evening, it is clear that this is what many people routinely opt to do. E-sales in December 2006 will total over £3.55 billion and 38% of this online shopping will take place either before 9am or after 6pm. The peak hours are between 7pm and 9pm.

KEY TRADING WEEK: DECEMBER 04 TO DECEMBER 10

MONDAY 4TH DECEMBER 2006 Monday 4 December will be the biggest online shopping day of the year, with sales worth £183,200,000.

- The biggest hour of the year will be between 1-2pm that day, with sales worth £14,250,000 - 30% of the sales that day, worth £55,125,000, will take place after 6pm (i.e. when many high street shops are shut). - In the evening peak that day, between 7 and 9pm, online shops will make sales worth £11.7 million pounds per hour.

SUNDAY 10TH DECEMBER 2006 - Sunday evening will have a huge sales peak, between 8-9pm, with sales worth over £11 million (£11.153m), almost as large as the Monday evening peak hour (£11.7m)

WEEK 49 - MONDAY 4 - SUNDAY 10 DECEMBER 2006 - This will be the biggest e-sales week of the year, with online sales worth £1.145 billion, almost twice the £0.577 billion average for the year. - This week's sales will represent a third (32.28%) of the total sales for the month of December.

DECEMBER 2006 - E-sales for December will be worth £3.55 billion (£3,547,406,000). - 38% of these sales, worth £1.35 billion, will take place outside traditional shopping hours.

THE RESEARCH The 'e-retail sales' data is based on the IMRG Index, which has collected hard UK online shopping sales data since April 2000.

The 'time of day' data from eDigitalResearch is based on more than 50 million visits to UK retail websites in November 2006.

ABOUT IMRG: IMRG (Interactive Media in Retail Group), founded in 1990, is the industry body serving e-retail: www.imrg.org

ABOUT EDIGITALRESEARCH: eDigitalResearch, established in 1999, is a leading digital technology market research firm: www.edigitalresearch.com

Emma Herrod