Already this year, Barclaycard reported online shopping is up more than 10 per cent compared to 2012, and credit card firm Visa has predicted today will beat last year’s Cyber Monday by a staggering 16 per cent. The company anticipated £450 million would be spent on its cards alone in more than 7.7 million online transactions.
Internet shopping figures have regularly peaked on the first Monday of December. In the US, the boom has been attributed to workers using their office computers on the first day back after Thanksgiving holidays. But in the UK Cyber Monday is thought to arise following the last payday before Christmas and with consumers having spent the weekend browsing for gifts in shops before buying online. While John Lewis said it expects 80,000 orders today, online-only retailer Amazon is unsurprisingly set to be busiest.
Xavier Garambois, vice president of EU retail at Amazon, told the broadcaster that Cyber Monday has “continued to grow every year.” An average of £312,500 will be spent online every minute on 2 December. The busiest shopping day on the high street often falls two days before Christmas Day, with Monday 23 December and Tuesday 24 December expected to draw peak numbers of shoppers this year.
