Almost 33 million Europeans spent a total of £1.8 billion on
Christmas shopping on the internet in December 2001, according to
the latest study from research firm Jupiter MMXI. German and
British shoppers were the heaviest users of e-tail sites, with 10
million and 9 million unique users respectively.
A comparison of December 2001 with December last year shows the
growth in popularity of retail on-line with most countries
experiencing an increase of more than 40% in the number of unique
visitors to retail web sites. According to Jupiter, visits to
e-tail sites are growing faster than the increase in the overall
internet population across Europe.
Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.fr reached more than 10% of
the internet population in Germany, the UK and France. France is
the only country where three sites (Fnac.com, Alapage.com and
Amazon.fr) have more than 10% reach. Other countries have generally
one clear leader. In the UK, traditional high street retailers such
as Argos.co.uk, Comet.co.uk and Whsmith.co.uk were very popular. In
December 2001, BOL.com, Johnlewis.com and Marksandspencer.com made
it into the top 10 retail sites.
Jupiter's valuation of the season's on-line shopping in Europe
at €2.9 billion (£1.8 billion) represents an increase of 71% from
2000.
