Newsletter 41

Online shopping will account for more than half of all consumer sales by 2026, amounting to more sales than the high street, mail order and telephone revenues put together.

This, anyway, is the prediction of uSwitch, a shopping comparison web site operator, which has arrived at its findings by extrapolating figures from the Office for National Statistics.

It says the present online shopping market share, which it puts at 19 per cent, will rise to 40 per cent in 2020, equating to sales of £163 billion, and will then continue expanding until it dominates consumer spending by 2026.

uSwitch attributes the growth to a variety of factors including improved online security, higher broadband speeds and better pricing.