Housewares Business-to-business magazine for housewares retailers and their suppliers
IMRG estimates that Brits’ total online spend on retail sites on Christmas Day will reach £805 million – a 10.1% increase on the £728 million spent on the same day in 2015.
The estimate is based on online retail sales data from the UK online retail association IMRG (Interactive Media in Retail Group), and online retail site traffic volume data from market intelligence solutions provider SimilarWeb.
Boxing Day is also estimated to get close to being a billion-pound online shopping day, with total spend forecast to hit £984m – a 15% increase on Boxing Day 2015.
This would still put Boxing Day behind Black Friday – where the 2016 spend was estimated to be £1.23 billion.
IMRG managing director Justin Opie said: “It might not seem an obvious fixture in the retail calendar, but Christmas Day has actually become a fairly significant online shopping day in the UK.
“Whereas gifts were traditionally physical items, many people now receive gift cards – which they can instantly redeem on the day – to download games, music, in-play app upgrades and so on.
“Many retailers will also have set their post-Christmas sales campaigns live on their sites by then, which are easy to browse during a quiet digestive moment post-Christmas dinner perhaps.”
SimilarWeb marketing vice-president Nitzan Tamari added: “Last year, both Christmas and Boxing Day were big days in terms of desktop and mobile web traffic in the UK. We saw over 73 million visits on Christmas Day alone.
We’re waiting to see if Boxing Day beats Black Friday this year. These were the biggest shopping days in 2015 and Black Friday won out by just under three million visits.”
