Monday 6th December has been confirmed as the busiest online shopping day of the year (Mega Monday) with business exceeding expectations at £291m for the day, according to Retail Decisions (the online payment processing specialist). The busiest time was 1.15pm, with sales peaking at an incredible £831,000 per minute.

Busiest online trading day

Readers will note from my previous blog on this subject Christmas sales… that November 29th was originally tipped as being the busiest online trading day, but comments and anecdotal evidence from many Touchretail independent retailers disagreed with this – most said that their sales peaked a week later, or even after that. This was borne out by latest Retail Decisions figures, who say that online sales on 6th December were 2% higher than the previous Monday. How things can change in a week or so.

Online trading up 21%

Online Sales December year by year

Another change in the last week has been more down to the icy cold weather and snow-laden roads and pavements. While High Street shopping has seen a dip, customers have voted with their mice and shopped more online – last Monday’s online sales were 21% up on the 2009 equivalent day. But with cold weather set to continue for a while, will we see another record day of online trading on Monday 13th December?

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