A third of British employees admit to shopping online when they are at work, according to new research.
Charitable price comparison website Give as you Live found that those workers who shop online from work, spend an average 24 minutes in every working day browsing online shopping sites, with 11am on Monday the most popular time to buy.
There’s a cost to this behaviour, the study found, since it costs business 96 hours a year in lost time per employee.
At the same time, shoppers spend £77.49 shopping online during the course of a 9am to 5pm shift. They’re most likely to be found on the Tesco website, while M&S and thetrainline were the second and third most-used website.
The number of transactions taking place between 9am and 5pm have risen by 14% between January and July 2014, compared to the same period in 2013, according to Give as you Live transaction data.
Steff Lewis, Give to Live director of communications, said: “It’s often said that there aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done, something our figures confirm.
“Working nine to five is how most people make a living, but it also means we have less time to do important life admin like shopping. Now we can see how Brits are coping – by shopping on the boss’ dollar.”
Give as you Live works with 3,500 partner retailers, from Tesco and Selfridges to Amazon and Asos.com, and has so far raised more than £4.7m for UK charities. When shoppers use the site to compare prices and then shop through those partner retailers, a percentage of their spend goes to the charity of the shopper’s choice in a donation made by the retailer.
Top 10 sites for online shopping from work
Tesco
Marks & Spencer
thetrainline
Next
Sainsbury’s
John Lewis
Waitrose
Virgin Trains
Moonpig
Groupon
