Today will be busiest ever for online shopping
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.British shoppers are expected to create the busiest ever online shopping day today as they flock to online stores to buy Christmas presents.
Known to retailers as "Cyber Monday", the first Monday after most shoppers' final monthly pay day has been the busiest day for e-retailers for the past three years.
Visa predict that £303 million will be spent online on their cards today, with five million transactions taking place. Despite the recession, this figure is 12 per cent higher than sales recorded on last year's Mega Monday, which they attribute to consumers taking advantage of online deals and increased online security.
Consumers are expected to spend £7.75 billion in the run-up to Christmas overall, says the online retail trade association IMRG. An estimated £13 billion will be spent across all sectors online, but figures on the high street are expected to fall by 2.1 per cent.
Richard Dodd, a spokesman for the British Retail Consortium, says most of our Christmas shopping could be later in December this year owing to deep discounting to draw in customers to make up for lost sales earlier in the year, and quicker delivery guarantees for e-shopping.
"The pattern for many years now has been for people to leave their Christmas shopping later and later.
"The biggest pre-Christmas spending will happen on that final weekend before Christmas and I would predict that the biggest time for online spending will be sometime within the week before that."
Both Amazon and John Lewis expect next Monday, December 5, to be their biggest shopping day.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments