Shoppers spent a total of 18.6m online last Christmas Day
The evening on Christmas Day is marked by many of us as a time spent chatting with family, playing board games or contentedly snoozing having had our fill of turkey and stuffing.
Increasingly however, more and more of us are choosing that time to get a head start on Boxing Day bargains, with 8pm found to be the busiest time on Christmas Day for shopping online.
New statistics published by online payment processor Worldpay has found that UK shoppers spent 1.3m online between 8pm and 9pm last Christmas Day the most throughout the day also parting with 973, 000 in the hour before midnight.
In total, consumers managed to spend 18.6m last Christmas, representing half the amount on an average shopping day. With processed payments increasing rapidly every hour from as early as 8am, by 1pm last year Worldpay saw over 1m in online transactions. Some 3m was spent online over the extended lunch period until 3pm.
Commenting on the statistics, UK managing director at Worldpay Dave Hodbay said: Our findings indicate the increasing need for retailers to adopt an ‘always on’ attitude. Online and ecommerce means consumers expect a unified shopping experience even over second helpings of Christmas pudding.
traditionally sales have been negligible on Christmas Day, with the vast majority of bricks and mortar stores closed, added Hobday.
Department store retailers such as John Lewis and Debenhams saw the strongest trade throughout Chsistmas Day, with 6m worth of transactions processed online. Clothing, footwear and electronic items also performed very well.
