Cyber Monday UK's biggest online shopping day

Cyber Monday this year was the UK's largest online shopping

day to date, as British shoppers managed to spend 15.3 million hours purchasing items online and paid 115 million visits to their favorite digital boutiques on the 2nd of December. Shoppers spent an average of 81.67 pounds per person and pushed up sales 31.6 percent compared to Cyber Monday last year, according to data from IBM, global IT and consulting services company.

Transactions carried out on a mobile device, such as a tablet or a smart phone were up 94 percent compared to last year and account for a third of all online purchases made on Cyber Monday. Surprisingly, according to the data gathered by IBM, Android users spend on average more than iOS users, the former spending 83.85 pounds per order compared to 79.98 pounds per order for the latter. But it was shoppers who owned a Samsung device who spend the most, averaging 86.20 pounds per order.

Chris Withers, head of IBM Europe's Smarter Commerce for retail division commented: “In the past, average order value has always been higher on Apple devices which retailers have attributed to the higher spending power of iPhone and iPad users. But with Samsung now topping average order value ...we can see how Samsung's devices now appeal to a more affluent demographic, whilst the launch of the latest iPhone [5c] may be increasing penetration in the broader consumer market.”

Digital solutions company Venda reported that over the four-day time frame from the 29th of November to the 1st of December, 24 percent of all online transactions were carried out on a tablet, with the value of items purchased a 301 percent increase from last year. Eric Abensur, group chief executive at Venda told Drapers: “Retailers that are already planning for the entire Christmas period, rather than just the ‘Cyber Weekend’, may already be getting an early Christmas present – with online sales in the run-up to the holidays due to break recent records.”

James Murray, digital insights manager at Experian, marketing services believes that “this Christmas is going to be the biggest ever in terms of online retail visits and December 2013 should be the first month that the UK reaches the 3 billion benchmark for visits to retail website.”