UK online sales rose by a fifth on Cyber Monday, according to the first figures.
Figures from IBM showed that online retail sales on Monday November 28 were 21.5% above the same Monday in 2010.
Many expect sales to peak again on Mega Monday, December 5. But IMRG, the eretail trade association, has predicted that sales will be strong throughout the first two weeks of December, starting on November 28. During that time it expects £3.72bn to be spent online, almost half of the £7.75bn it predicts will be spent through the five week December shopping period.
IBM’s figures, gathered through its Coremetrics Benchmark analysis, showed a three-fold growth in mobile traffic on November 28, which rose to 12% of all traffic, while transactions through mobile devices rose to 9.8% of all sales.
Traffic from iPhones accounted for 4.9% of all mobile traffic, followed by the iPad at 3.5%. Android saw dramatic growth in its share of the market, up by more than 700% to 3.3% of mobile traffic, from 0.4% at the same time last year.
Social traffic still accounted for less than 1% of all retail sales, but Facebook was the top social referral channel.
Early retail figures for the period are also now in from department store chain John Lewis, which showed a healthy rise in online sales in the week that included November 28. It said that in the week to Sunday December 3, johnlewis.com turned in a record week with takings 13.9% up on the previous year.
Across the group, the company saw sales for the week rise to £113.6m, up 9.6% on same week last year and 15.1% on the previous week. The same week last year saw trade hit by snow but, said John Lewis, sales were still up by 10.9% compared to two years ago.
The company said: “The .com figure proves that the convenience of online shopping at John Lewis, particularly including the ‘click and collect’ option, is meeting customers’ requirements and will continue to do so going forwards, with the prediction that Mega Monday will see the popularity of online shopping in clear evidence.”
Nat Wakely, director selling operations at John Lewis, said: “We expect to see continued strong sales growth as there is no escaping that Christmas is around the corner now that we are firmly in the month of December.”
