The latest figures of the annual IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index have revealed that online sales in November are up 18 per cent from last year as the festive rush has encouraged consumers to reach into their digital pockets.
In total£8.4bn was spent online-the first time since the launch of the index in 2000 that spending has topped the£8bn mark for a single month.
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Year-on-year growth in the m-commerce sector was at a whopping 309 per cent,reflecting increasing consumer confidence in completing the shopping experience on smartphones and tablets,as well as improvement of usability on retailers'mobile web pages and apps.
Tina Spooner,CIO at IMRG,commented:"The robust index performance in November is a clear indicator that festive shoppers are using the internet more than ever before in the run up to Christmas.
"Britain's soaring use of smartphones and tablets is also evident in the Mobile Index results,and confidence in the channel is clearly growing.The conversion rate of 2.1 per cent is the highest recorded yet and a sure sign for retailers that mobile has to form a key part of their strategy going into 2013,"she added.
Meanwhile,customer experience analytics provider ForeSee has announced its findings for its annual Christmas customer satisfaction index across the UK's top 40 online retail websites.
The research,conducted the University of Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction Index methodology,measures each retail website against a score of 100.
Overall,there was a slight increase in aggregate consumer satisfaction from Christmas 2011 to Christmas 2012 from 73 to 74.It found that the leading online retailers were Amazon.co.uk(86 points),Amazon.com(84 points)and John Lewis(80 points).
Play.com(79),Apple(77)and Asda Direct(77)also appear at the top of the Index.The lowest scorers were Netflix(68)and Ryan Air(61 points).
