UK shoppers double on the Net

According to a survey of those making purchases, carried out by NOP

Research Group, three out of five spent less than pounds 50, while one

in seven spent more than pounds 500.

It is expected that over pounds 1bn worth of transactions will take

place online during 1997. The most popular purchases are computer

hardware and software which are mainly bought by business users.

But areas such as books, CDs, travel tickets and holidays are all

increasing in popularity, and over a third of the respondents said that

they would consider buying financial services online within the next six

months.

Indications are that users are becoming more confident of revealing

their financial details over the Net. One in ten users have now

disclosed their credit card details on the Internet compared with one in

25 a year ago.

The number of current users in the UK increased to almost 2.5 million by

the end of last year.