High street retailers see more traffic than online-only

Retailers with a physical high street presence as well as a website are getting more visits from Brits than online-only retailers, according to new figures.

Research by Hitwise Intelligence found that there was a difference of nearly a quarter (22 per cent) in November between the two and this is expected to get larger.

Hitwise research director Robin Goad said that “to a certain extent this shift was inevitable”, citing the fact that big names such as Amazon were likely to have a large market share while established high-street brands dragged their heals over the new-fangled technology of the internet.

“It took a while for many high street retailers to ‘get’ the internet and successfully move their offline proposition (and customers) to the web,” he added.

While high street shops may see their online share increase and internet shopping is expected to be more popular this Christmas than last, spending in general has been predicted to go down.

Financial services firm Deloitte published a survey which found that spending on gifts and socialising will go down this year.