WebProNews

Close to 4 million British shoppers went online to purchase goods on Christmas Day, spending a total of  $154 million (102 million pounds) according to a new report from the ecommerce retailing body IMRG.

Christmas Day itself has now become a popular online shopping day with the British and spending on the holiday was up 21 percent over last year. This works out as an average $39 per shopper, compared with $28 per shopper last year.

"Though the number of people shopping on Christmas Day was 14% lower than in 2007, the volume of transactions was 26% higher, and the value rose by21%, indicating that serious bargain hunting was the order of the day," said James Roper, CEO at IMRG.

Traffic to retail Web sites during the run-up to Christmas 2008 was higher than the 2007 level, but tranaction volumes increased even more sharply - up 9 percent in November and 28 percent in December, according to Secure Trading. Spending totals were down, however, indicating that more people were buying but lower value items.

"The underlying message that runs through these results is continuing consumer confidence in the online channel which has remained robust throughout the festive period," said Chris Russel, director at eDigitalResearch.

"We expect to see this continue with the online retail channel at the forefront of aggressive sales activity during 2009. No doubt the consumer will continue to respond to these aggressive tactics and search out the bargains."