Online spending 'may have reached £350m' on December 7th

Monday this week (December 7th) may have been the most profitable day of the year in terms of online retailing, with as much as £350 million spent by consumers, research suggests.

According to predictions from the Interactive Media in Retail Group, total online sales for December could surge nearly 15 per cent year-on-year to reach £5 billion as more people use the internet to find good deals in the lead-up to Christmas.

Chris Russell, director of eDigitalResearch, said more people now have access to the internet through mobile devices as well as through conventional fixed-line connections and this could be driving online sales.

He said: "This is the first year that smart devices - iPhones and the like - have worked sufficiently well and been in enough hands to perhaps provide a shift in consumer behaviour."

Broadband connectivity is available at low costs and at faster speeds, which could also result in more people using VoIP solutions.

Brian McBride, managing director of Amazon.co.uk, revealed sales volumes for the first Monday of December this year were expected to surpass the 1.4 million items sold on the same day in 2008.