Amazon forecasts online spending will hit peak volumes at 9pm with visitor numbers expected to be up 19% against last Monday
The online Christmas shopping frenzy is predicted to peak on Monday, with a significant number of purchases made from mobile phones for the first time, as the nation rushes to order presents to meet postal deadlines.
On Cyber Monday, Amazon forecasts spending will hit peak volumes at 9pm. Internet visitor numbers are expected to be up 19% compared with last Monday, according to price comparison site MoneySupermarket, and the average shopper is expecting to make 41% of their purchases online this year.
"Shopping online for Christmas gifts increases in popularity every year," said Simon James at MoneySupermarket. "You are also far more likely to find a cheaper deal."
But while online shopping continues to soar, the high street is braced for its toughest Christmas since the 2008 credit crunch. According to a high street sales tracker published by accountants BDO, receipts at mid-tier retailers dipped 1.7% in November compared with last year, despite a flurry of promotions.
Mild weather hit fashion sales, which dropped 1%, while non-fashion slumped 3.1% and housewares were down 2.6%. The combination of inflation, rising unemployment and the eurozone crisis will restrict growth over the Christmas period to between zero and 2%.
Internet shoppers have two weeks to make the Christmas post. Last orders for Amazon's free delivery option are on 18 December, while the Post Office says its customers have until 14 December using the "standard parcels" service.
Britons will spend £13.4bn in cyber shops this Christmas, says the Centre for Retail Research, with purchases made from a mobile phone accounting for a 12% of online spending. "Mobile is going to be a really big deal this year," said the Centre's professor Joshua Bamfield. "We're thinking spending on mobile could total around £1.64bn and that's grown from close to zero last year."
Ebay says smartphones are now used to list 1 million items for sale globally every week, and that 300,000 shoppers new to its internet auction site opted to make their first purchase from a phone rather than a computer in the first five months of 2011.
This year is likely to be the last for discounted mail order shopping for cosmetics, music and films from the Channel Islands. A tax loophole that allowed items costing less than £18 to be posted free of VAT to the UK mainland will close on 1 April. The numbers revealed by the BDO survey are a taste of things to come in 2012, with retail spending likely to remain at a virtual standstill. BDO's Don Williams said: "Trends get magnified at Christmas. Typically strong retailers get stronger and weak retailers get weaker. This year the economic backdrop means even in the best case scenario overall sales will only probably grow by 2%."
However, Williams believes that after the retail uplift provided by this year's royal wedding, next year's diamond Jubilee and the London Olympics may "boost consumer confidence" during summer trading.