The latest data from Hitwise has revealed that UK internet users broke online records this week by spending 13 million hours on shopping online during Boxing Day (26th December 2011). Retail websites received a total of 96 million UK Internet visits, which is up by 40% from Boxing Day last year (68 million visits).

As ever eBay (9.79%), Amazon (8.56%), Argos (2.87%), NEXT (2.33%) and John Lewis (2.01%) took the lion's share of online shopping visits. Fashion stores also proved to be more popular than electrical ones, albeit only when you exclude eBay and Amazon. Department stores M&S, Debenhams and House of Fraser also rose in the rankings thanks to their promoted post-Christmas sales.


Unsurprisingly Christmas Eve was the slowest day for online shopping with 45.5 million visits, which jumped to 62.8 million on Christmas Day (38% increase in a single day). Online retailers should perhaps start to note that Christmas Day is fast becoming very significant as a major shopping day.