Boxing Day ‘biggest online day’

Shoppers kicked off their search for bargains on Boxing Day from the comfort of their armchairs, according to new figures, which show it was the country’s biggest ever day for Internet retailing.
Experian Hitwise analysis reveals consumers paid 96 million visits to UK online retail sites on December 26 2011, spending a collective 13 million hours online, and up 19.5% on the same day last year, when there were 80.5 million visits.
The big winners were multichannel retailers, the analysis showed. Almost twice as many visits were to multichannel brands than to pureplay online-only traders. However, the figures suggested, the gap between the two types of retailer is narrowing.
James Murray, marketing and research analyst at Experian Hitwise, said: “Boxing Day is traditionally the biggest retail day of the year, but this year it was massive with over 15 million more visits going to retail website than last year.
“A lot of this is down to smart multi-channel marketing by the big retailers using TV, radio and the web to drive transaction volumes. The convenience of the web combined with massive discounts, free postage and packing and next day delivery is incredibly tempting for people that want to avoid the hurly burly of high street sales.”
The analysis showed that gadgets were among the most searched for products on Boxing Day. The Amazon Kindle and Apple iPad 2 topped the list. Apple had three products within the top 10 Boxing Day list including the iPad 2, iPod Touch and iPhone 4S.

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