17 October 2006
Businesses with effective methods of e-commerce could find that they are in for a Christmas bonus this year, with experts forecasting £9 billion to be spent online.
The Interactive Media in Retail Group is predicting that the Internet will see a rise in shopping to £9 billion, from the £5 billion recorded last year.
Online advertising and marketing company Hitwise is also predicting a surge in e-commerce as the festive season draws closer, Retail Bulletin reports.
Furthermore, many Internet shoppers could be looking to leave their purchases to the last minute, claims the company's director of research Heather Hopkins.
"Last-minute shopping worked well last year … so we expect to see more people leaving it till later this year with peaks during the weeks ending December 9th and 16th," she remarked.
Alexander Burmaster, European Internet analyst at Nielsen/NetRatings, also spoke at the conference, highlighting the importance of search engines, as many shoppers are using services such as Google to find their products.
Various methods are believed to improve a website's search engine performance, including regular fresh content, although an expert at IDEdb recently warned that search engine optimisation should never undermine the usability of a website.
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