UK Internet users made 113 million visits to retail websites on 26 December 2012 setting a new British retail record in the process, but figures were lower than expected due to major retailers bringing forward their winter sales to Christmas Eve.

In total the UK spent 14 million hours shopping online on Boxing Day, making 17% more visits to retail websites than on Boxing Day last year. The 113 million visits to the retail industry is higher than any other day in British history, and yet falls someway short of the 126 million visits we predicted earlier in December.

This discrepancy was caused by the huge volumes of traffic witnessed on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day which cannibalised some of the visits that would normally have taken place on Boxing Day. As major retailers including John Lewis, Debenhams and Amazon brought their Boxing Day sales forward to Christmas Eve, visits shot up far beyond our expectations. Christmas Eve is traditionally one of the worst days of December for retail visits but this year retailers received 84 million visits, putting it on par with last year’s Cyber Monday – the third biggest shopping day of 2011!

As each year goes on the notion of the post-Christmas sale is becoming redundant. 5 years ago we called it the January sales, before it became the Boxing Day sales, now retailers have to call it the winter sales as discounting starts earlier to encourage higher spending. In yesterday’s blog I commented that 1 in every 125 searches in the UK included the word ‘sale’ or ‘sales’ on Christmas Eve, this ‘sales creep’ is only going to continue as consumers push retailers to discount earlier which could make next Christmas very interesting indeed. Just 6 million Internet visits separated Christmas Day from Boxing Day this year – if this trend continues next year Christmas Day 2013 could eclipse Boxing Day visit figures.

The rise of mobile

What is fascinating is to look at the retailers which have seen the greatest growth in market share of retail visits on Boxing Day this year compared to last year. You can see from the chart below that five of the top 10 fastest moving websites are mobile sites of which four are for multi-channel retailers with a presence both online and on the high street.

Tablets were by far the most searched for gift overall this Christmas, and with millions of new iPads, Kindle Fires, Nexus 7s, Surfaces and many other models being opened on Christmas Day it is not surprising to see the mobile retail sites rising up the rankings. Tablets are light and convenient to browse on and are becoming a core part of the retail research and buying experience. As mobile Internet usage continues to increase, consumers will have even more information at their fingertips which is only going to drive competition harder between the big retail powerhouses.

Our post-Christmas whitepaper will be coming out in January with all of the top trends over this Christmas retail period and we will also be running a free webinar on 16 January as well as our daily festive insights. Stay tuned to Twitter for the latest updates.