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Telematics – an intelligent future, like it or not
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Newsletter 35
Groceries head for top slot as home shopping surges
Online spending growing at its fastest rate for six years, according to Verdict Research. It says 2007 online spending on retail purchases rose by 35 per cent to £14.7 billion – almost ten times more than the growth of 3.6 per cent in the overall UK retail market. The figures are contained in Verdict’s latest report on this market, UK e-Retail 2008, which underlines the findings published earlier this year by its offshoot Verdict Consulting (reported in our last newsletter). Verdict says the online market expanded by over a third in 2007, driven by a 5.9 per cent increase in internet users (to 33.1 million) and a 24.7 per cent increase in online shoppers (to 22.6 million). Shoppers were purchasing more regularly; the average number of web ‘trips’ was 16.9 times per year, an increase of 2.7 on 2006, and each consumer spent an average of 7.8 per cent more than in 2006. Electricals and food and grocery made up just under half of all online retail spending in 2007, with electricals taking 25.1 per cent, but Verdict predicts that food and grocery will eventually leapfrog electricals into the top spot, accounting for 29 per cent of all online sales in 2012, compared with 22 per cent for electricals. 
While new entrants to the online arena such as IKEA contributed to the increase in online shopping, Verdict says the most significant factor was that the majority of retailers were enhancing and expanding their online offers.
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