Without the flashy ad campaigns of Christmas past, online retailers are quietly meeting the rosiest sales forecasts as consumers spend billions of pounds chasing bargains at eBay and Amazon, according to new shopping studies.
A survey by Web audience measurement group Nielsen//Netratings reported today that 47 per cent of Western European Internet users visited a shopping site in November, another record.
"November has been a key month for growth the past two years," said Mr Tom Ewing, an analyst with Nielsen//Netratings.
He added that the percentage of Germans, British and French Internet users who visit shopping sites from home is among the highest in the world, reaching 65 per cent, 51 per cent and 47 per cent of all active Net users in the respective countries.
Meanwhile, the Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) reported today UK consumers spent a record one billion pounds in November shopping online.
The splurge represented a 95-per cent jump from the previous November, IMRG reported. In contrast, traditional retail sales grew 6.1 per cent in the same period, according to the British Retail Consortium.
"The UK consumer is on his way to becoming the world's largest spender online," Mr Jaap Favier, an analyst for Forrester Research, said, commenting on the report.
Despite growing concerns about the global economy, consumers continue to flock to the Internet to research bargains, and increasingly, make a purchase as they are increasingly comfortable shopping on the Web.
While it represents a sliver of overall retail sales, e-commerce has grown from a niche into a mass market phenomenon even after many dot-com retailers have gone out of business for misjudging early market conditions.
Early predictions about 2002 Christmas e-commerce sales, which may have seemed overly ambitious six weeks ago, now appear to be on target.
For example, Forrester Research forecast online sales for Europe this Christmas period would surge to €7.6 billion, an 86 per cent increase over previous years.