Record UK web shopping on Christmas Day

What did you do on Christmas Day?

Open presents, eat and drink too much, go to a church service, argue with relatives, watch TV? Well according to latest research, around 4.4M people in the UK went shopping online, spending £84M which is up 269% compared with last Christmas. 

Most shopping occurred after 3pm with the busiest period between 8 and 10pm. Some retailers like Argos who usually start their store sales on Boxing Day, started their online sales one day earlier.

'e-camping'

A Dixons director talked about a new phenomenon called 'e-camping' where buyers mimiced traditional sales behaviour (of camping outside waiting for the store to open) by signing up for email alerts to secure products with limited supply like the Nintendo Wii. 

Is shopping online at Christmas antisocial?

I am sure that some people are desperate to get out on Boxing Day drive to their local shopping centre, then wait 30 minutes for a parking space, fight their way through a busy store, wait 10 minutes to find a member of staff, then wait 30 minutes more to find one who knows anything about the product, before joining a queue at the checkout. I guess there are some downsides too!

For me, spending 15 minutes online making the purchase is a lot less hassle.

However, when I worked with UK supermarket Asda, I was always struck how many Asda shoppers shopped every day. Listening to customer research groups, it wasn't necessarily because they needed to but because they wanted to. Many actually really enjoyed supermarket shopping. It was the highlight of their day. It was 'their time' and got them out of the house to meet other people and socialise. Some like looking for bargains and what is new.

It's not for everyone

As in all things people are different. Some will take advantage of the benefits that the internet brings. Others will not. That makes life varied and interesting especially for us web marketers.

Remember...web marketing is about solving customers' problems profitably.

Peter Hawtin is an internet marketing specialist with Brand New Way, a UK web marketing agency (based in Wiltshire & Bristol) which helps companies to attract and keep valuable customers online.