New records were set for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day retail figures as consumers went online in their droves to buy last minute Christmas gifts and take advantage of early discounting.

UK Internet users made 84 million visits to retail websites on Christmas Eve and 107 million visits on Christmas Day up an astonishing 86% and 71% respectively compared to the same days in December 2011. Although Christmas Eve was expected to be much bigger this year than it was last year because of the fall of the days (Christmas Eve being on a Monday and a half working day for much of the population) the actual visit figures dwarfed our original predictions of a 32% YoY increase.

The ‘sales creep’ and early discounting in some of Britain’s major stores is one of the key reasons for the increased visits online. On Christmas Eve 1 in every 125 searches conducted in the UK included the word ‘sale’ or ‘sales’ the top sales search terms being ‘next sale’, ‘debenhams sale’, ‘marks and spencer sale’ and ‘john lewis sale’. It’s clear from this data that a lot of the growth in visits can be attributed to the big department stores promoting their sales and discounts early.

Amazon UK also contributed to the record visits figures, overtaking eBay UK on Christmas Day as the most visited retail website online for the first time in 2012. Amazon UK accounted for over 12% of all visits to retail websites on Christmas Day with many recipients of the Kindle or Kindle Fire HD looking to register their new devices, buy books and new accessories.

This all leads to some interesting speculation about what will happen today online. Boxing Day has traditionally been the single biggest shopping day of the year online. This year we predicted that Boxing Day would see UK Internet shoppers make 126 million visits to retail websites and in doing so set new records for online shopping. Things could go either one of two ways. Either, the boom in post-Christmas shopping could mean our cautious predictions of 31% growth for Boxing Day are smashed out of the park, or the early buying on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day could mean Boxing Day is slightly subdued.

So far, Christmas 2012 has far exceeded our expectations, and to that extent we might be in for a truly monumental shopping day today. Look out for our blog tomorrow with the actual visits figures and if you are hitting the shops, happy bargain hunting!