The second of December will be busiest online shopping day pre-Christmas, but could be eclipsed by ‘Middle’ Cyber Monday, with £10.5 billion spent on online retail transactions in December alone, according to a new forecast. Experian reveals its online retail predictions for this year’s festive season. Insight from Experian Hitwise, the online competitive intelligence tool, […]
The second of December will be busiest online shopping day pre-Christmas, but could be eclipsed by ‘Middle’ Cyber Monday, with £10.5 billion spent on online retail transactions in December alone, according to a new forecast.
Experian reveals its online retail predictions for this year’s festive season. Insight from Experian Hitwise, the online competitive intelligence tool, indicates that Christmas 2013 will be the biggest ever for online retailers in the UK. Visits to UK retail websites are expected to reach 113 million on Monday 2nd December – known as the UK’s “Cyber Monday”.
Experian’s key retail predictions for Cyber Monday include:
• Cyber Monday (2nd December) will be the biggest pre-Christmas shopping day online with 113 million visits to retail websites from UK Internet users, a 1 per cent increase year-on-year (112 million visits to retail websites on Cyber Monday 2012)*.
• Experian is coining 9th December “Middle” Cyber Monday. As Cyber Monday is early this year and people increasingly expect retailers to be able to deliver gifts closer to Christmas, Experian anticipates there will be over 110 million visits to retail websites on this day, and this date could even eclipse Cyber Monday itself in terms of visits.
Further online retail predictions for December 2013 include:
• This December 400 million hours will be spent shopping online by the UK Internet population a 7.5 per cent year-on-year increase on December 2012 (372 million hours)
• The average consumer will spend 8 hours browsing, researching and buying Christmas presents online this December again a 7.5 per cent year-on-year increase.
• 3 billion visits will go to online retail websites in December 2013, representing 7 per cent growth year-on-year – and the first time the UK will have reached this benchmark.
• The UK will make 150 million retail transactions online in December 2013, spending around £10.5 billion online shopping this Christmas**.
• Boxing Day (26th December) will be the single biggest online shopping day of 2013. UK Internet users will make 115 million visits to retail websites, up 2 per cent year-on-year.
“This Christmas is going to be the biggest ever in terms of online retail visits and December 2013 should be the first month that the UK reaches the 3 billion benchmark for visits to retail websites,” commented James Murray, Digital Insights Manager at Experian Marketing Services.
“What we don’t expect to see this year is the well-defined peaks and troughs of shopping activity over Christmas. With the growth of mobile and the ease of quick one-click shopping, we expect to see the homogenisation of shopping days as consumers are less confined in their shopping habits. Marketers need to ensure their campaigns address the cross-channel behaviours of today’s consumers and offer a seamless experience whether their customers are shopping on the high street or on the go. For consumers this means an ever more convenient shopping experience, personalised to their needs”.
*Predictions based on Experian Hitwise historical data 2009-2012 and growth trends throughout 2013.
**Transactions and UK spend calculated assuming an online conversion rate of 5 per cent and average order value of £70 based on Experian Marketing Services data from December 2012.
