Given the economic conditions, people are watching Christmas retail numbers like hawks. Below are the key numbers for online shopping in the UK over the last few days.
Sales searches up 3.2%
Combined, UK Internet searches for the terms ‘sales’ and ‘sale’ increased by 3.2% between the week ending 29/12/07 and the equivalent period last year (w/e 27/12/08). This small increase compares to a trebling of sales searches last year.
Here is a list of the top UK Internet searches containing the word ‘sale’ for the week ending 27/12/08:
1. next sale
2. debenhams sale
3. currys sale
4. john lewis sale
5. argos sale
6. comet sale
7. m&s sale
8. marks and spencer sale
9. boxing day sale
10. bhs sale
Boxing Day was the busiest day for online retailers during 2008, but traffic was down 4.9% on last year
As the chart below illustrates, Boxing Day was the busiest day for online retailers during 2008, with the sector attracting 16.2% more visits than on the second busiest day, Sunday 30/11/2008. This was an increase of 22.0% compared with Christmas Day (itself the 7th busiest day of the year), but a 4.9% decrease on 2007.

Combined, UK Internet searches for the terms ‘boxing day sale’ and ‘boxing day sales’ increased by 22.2% compared with 2007. Many of the people searching for Boxing Day sales clearly chose to hit the high street or shopping mall rather than buy online. According to our colleagues at Experian Footfall, the UK National Preliminary figures showed that the number of shoppers were up year-on-year by +12.5% for Boxing Day versus Boxing Day last year.
Fashion sector the biggest sales beneficiary
As the list of sales search terms above implies, the two biggest product areas during the sales were fashion and electronics. The table below details the change in traffic to key retail sub-sectors between Boxing Day 2007 and 2008. Both Apparel & Accessories and Grocery & Alcohol experienced significant year on year growth, while Department Stores and Sport & Fitness saw moderate increases. Both House & Garden and Appliances & Electronics saw traffic fall year on year, but at a slower rate than the overall online retail market. The former category saw the biggest increase in traffic between Christmas Day and Boxing Day, followed by Grocery & Alcohol.

Follow Hitwise UK on Twitter.