Retail Spend Expectations To Be Exceeded On Cyber Monday
December 9th, 2010The Monday which falls closest to peoples final pay day before Xmas is often called referred to as Cyber Monday and is typically thought to be the busiest day of the shopping calendar as people look to get all their Christmas gifts sorted whilst they know what budgets they have to last the Christmas Period.
This year Cyber Monday falls on the 29th November and whilst it has long been expected that the retail industry was going to suffer during the Christmas period due to coming out of a recession however an online poll conducted by YouGov has reported that 45% of UK adults who are planning to buy online will be buying between the 29th November and 6th December.
With 27% of UK adults who are buying online planning to spend over £200 on their Christmas Gifts this year, it is expected that all retail forecasts may well be smashed with consumers also looking to ensure any high ticket items are purchased before the VAT increase comes into play early next year.
A report from leading gift review website GiftsGuideUK.com states that online sales will peak at around 23 million pounds per hour on Christmas gifts and stocking fillers during cyber Monday, far exceeding last year’s spending on the same day.
Paul Smith, MD of GiftsGuideUK.com commented: “During the 5 weeks run up to Christmas online retailers can see sales rise anywhere up to 75% and Cyber Monday is the peak of this iceberg, it’s such an important time in the retail calendar. This year we are expecting higher ticket items like gaming chairs and games consoles to sell really well before the VAT rise in 2011.”
The busiest day for offline high street retailers and gift shops is known as panic Saturday and will fall this year on Saturday 18th December with over 9.5million UK adults set to hit the shops in a last minute rush to finish off their Christmas shopping.

