NEWS

LONDON, January 5th, 2010 - Retail Decisions (ReD), a world leader in card fraud prevention, payment processing and card issuing reports 2009 online retail sales were at an estimated £49.8 billion, up 21% from 2008 as up to thirty-three million consumers hit their computers.

Carl Clump, CEO of Retail Decisions commented, “In 2009, 30% of online sales took place in November and December underlining the importance of the holiday season to retailers. The top five busiest days of the year, all Mondays, took place over this period. In the UK, Monday, 7th December was the biggest online shopping day of the year, up 16% on 2008 at an estimated £534 million. For the first time in the UK, a post Christmas Monday, 28th December, made it onto the list of top performing online days.”

“Mondays are the busiest online shopping days due to consumers’ price sensitivity. Shoppers spend their weekends shopping on the high street, finding the items they want to buy. Then they take to the internet to find the best deal they can for their chosen items.”

Top Performing Days of 2009

1. Monday December 7th

2. Monday December 28th (First post Christmas Monday)

3. Monday December 14th

4. Monday November 30th

5. Monday December 1st

“For the first time in ten years, the latest electronic gadgets didn’t make the top spot of the most popular product of the year. Necessities such as white goods for the kitchen took the first place followed by laptops, widescreen TVs, digital cameras, games consoles, MP3 players, NetBooks and the iPhone 3G.”