63% of UK buyers plan to get 50% or more Christmas presents online

A recent survey has found that a massive 87% of UK consumers will buy some Christmas presents from the internet this year. And a staggering 63% say they will get at least half their presents online.

Why? "Saving time", with convenience, ease and price also cited.

Action: make sure your site has present giver functions like present finder, gift wrap and delivery notes with no price printed.

Surfers bail fast if products unfindable

A survey by US search provider SLI Systems has found that online shoppers will leave a site within a couple of minutes if they can't find the product they're looking for.

Action: make sure your home page is uncluttered and that the search and browse functions are easy to use. I was looking for jewellery boxes yesterday and failed dismally. On too many sites a search for jewellery boxes found a mass of jewellery & browsing wasn't much better: should I be looking under jewellery, accessories or home?

"3D" virtual shopping still doesn't work

US gadget multi-channel retailer Brookstone has launched a 3D virtual shop. I'm not impressed! The software takes five minutes to install and the end result is almost impossible to navigate. Nice try, but it won't catch on. The web should be embraced as a new medium in its own right, not forced to replicate existing media, whether page turning catalogues or 3D virtual stores.

High Street gaining on ecommerce only retailers

Recent Hitwise analysis has found that the web sites of High Street retailers are getting more visitors than the sites of online only merchants such as Amazon. In previous years most ecommerce traffic has been to online only merchants - except for the Christmas and January sale period. This year the High Street retailers got more than half of ecommerce visitors in September and the gap seems to be widening.

We have long argued that the ecommerce game would be won, in the end, by the old-established retailers. Looks like we're right.