Cyber Xmas Monday peaks at €12.7m


17 Dec 2007

Frenzied Irish Christmas shoppers spent €12.7m on Cyber Monday — the busiest online-shopping day before Christmas, which fell this year on 3 December. During a single hour that day, some €1.35m was spent, equating to €22,500 per minute.

This was up 51pc from the €8.4m that was processed at the same time last year.

According to online payments processing firm Realex Payments, which processes €4bn a year for its 2,500 clients, for the first 12 days of December this year, the average daily spend was over €7.9m, up from €3.7m per day in 2005.

“At a time when the overall retail growth rate is starting to decline, this shows a major trend towards buying and selling online,” said Colm Lyon, managing director of Realex Payments.

Realex reveals that consumers are spending more than before. The average transaction this year was €168, compared with an average transaction value of €152 last year.

“The online market choice for consumers is now greater than ever, with so many more buyers and sellers emerging and each side is attracting the other,” Lyon said.

“In addition to large retailers selling bigger volumes online, we have noticed a sizeable increase in the number of small and medium sized businesses that are really taking advantage of the internet.

“But Irish businesses are not just selling to Irish consumers — they sell to consumers all over the world, so our geographic location is less relevant when it comes to selling online,” Lyon concluded.

“There’s no doubt that Ireland can emerge as one of the leading e-commerce players on the global internet stage.”

By John Kennedy