High street retailers gain millions of customers online

by Jacquie Bowser, Revolution UK 13-Jan-09, 10:25

LONDON - Retailers including Asda, Littlewoods and Marks & Spencer gained millions of customers online, in contrast to a tough Christmas for the high street, according to research by Nielsen Online.

Amazon was the most popular UK online retailer during Christmas trading, attracting an average of 15.6m users each month - almost double that of its closest rival, Argos, the research company found.

From October to December 2008, Amazon's unique audience was up 18 per cent on the same period in 2007 when the website attracted an average of 13.2m unique users per month.

Yet eight of the top ten e-commerce sites in Q4 2008 were high street retailers. Argos performed well during the Christmas period, increasing its average unique users by 32 per cent year-on-year to hit 8.2m. Marks & Spencer, Littlewoods, Currys, Asda, John Lewis and Next rounded out the top 10.

Tesco followed closely in third with 7.3m monthly unique users, an increase of 15 per cent year on year.

Along with Amazon, Play.com was the only other pure online retailer in the top 10. The games and electronics site drew in an average 5.7m users, which was a 35 per cent jump on its audience during the same period in 2007.

Littlewoods had the largest year-on-year growth among the ten sites, increasing its users by 66 per cent. Asda jumped by 53 per cent year on year and M&S grew its visitor numbers by 46 per cent.

Overall, the top 10 retailers increased their unique visitors by 37 per cent compared to the 2007 Christmas shopping period.

Alex Burmaster, communications director for Nielsen Online, said that the performance of the top ten online retailers offered good news at a bad time for the economy.

"It's not that online retail will be impervious to the tighter financial environment but it has an opportunity to weather the storm better than other elements of the economy, particularly if retailers promote the web as the best way of finding cheaper goods in the most efficient and convenient way possible."