Online shopping in the UK over the Christmas period was more pronounced than expected, taking retailers by surprise.
Data from the British Retail Consortium shows that non-food online retail sales grew by a massive 19.2% in December, the fastest pace since March 2010.
The structural shift in shopping behaviour from shops to online took place at a time when retail sales grew by just 1.8%.
By the close of the year 18.6% of consumer spending is now online, a new record.
The increasing popularity of smartphones and tablets appears to be behind the rapid growth.
Even those retailers who had already established online shopping facilities were surprised by the increase in digital shopping, including Tesco which is the largest online food retailer in the world with a market share of internet shopping in the UK of 47%.
But even that did not mean that Tesco did well over Christmas. Sales were down as consumers were found to spread their spending around different retailers.
Others with well-established online facilities, however, saw stronger sales, such as Next, John Lewis and House of Fraser.
A click-and-collect service, especially where the goods can be picked up the next day, served retailers well. For John Lewis, such orders rose by a whopping 62%.
Retailers with no or poor online services were, for the most part, left struggling. One notable exception was Primark which will still seeing shoppers go to their stores.
“This is an industry in transition, not an industry in decline,” according to Dave McCarthy, retail analyst at HSBC, who claimed this is part of a “generational shift”.
