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The Guardian - UK

Business

Patrick Collinson

Forget The X Factor – Sunday night is prime time for online shopping

The X Factor 2016 winner Matt Terry. Photograph: ITV

Sunday night at 8pm is now the peak time for online shopping, according to new data on the spending patterns of millions of consumers.

Rather than being riveted to Planet Earth II or the X Factor final, data from Lloyds Bank suggests the British public are “second screening” on their sofas, shopping as much as watching.

The figures also reveal how at 11am on a Monday morning millions of people are not really working but are buying high-price items after visiting the shops at the weekend.

Lloyds said that while Sunday at 8pm is the peak for online shopping in terms of credit card transactions, the peak in terms of the value of items bought is on Mondays at 11am.

The figures, based on transactions between September 2015 and August 2016, confirm the growing trend for shoppers to treat stores as showrooms for goods, where they inspect items physically but don’t buy. Instead, they return home to compare prices and decide to make purchases on a Sunday night or Monday morning.

Paul Gordon, managing director of credit cards for Lloyds Bank, said: “It’s likely that the peak we see in online spending by value on a Monday is driven by those who use the weekend to find the goods they want in store, then shop online to make sure they get the best deals as well as by retailers who offer sales and discounts over long weekends, often ending on a Monday.

“As for online spending by volume, it looks like we’re most likely to spend online on a Sunday evening while we’re watching The X Factor or Planet Earth.”

Andy Mulcahy of IMRG, the UK trade body for online retailers, said Monday morning used to be the busiest time for online retailers, as customers relied on desktop computers at work to make purchases, but Sunday night has become the peak as people have shifted to using smartphones.

The switch in spending to Sunday nights has also forced retailers to operate vast warehouses open 24 hours to meet demand and promises of immediate delivery – and replace people with robots.

Early next year Amazon will open the UK’s largest ever warehouse, close to Tilbury docks in east London, partly staffed by robots, which will “help speed order processing time and reduce walking time”. Using robots means 50% more items can be stocked per square foot, it said.

It said its “Prime Day” record for delivery stands at 10 minutes and 11 seconds. A customer clicked on a Playstation video game at home in Beeston and received it just 10 minutes later via the company’s Leeds distribution centre.

But despite the phenomenal growth in online shopping in the UK – which is higher than in France, Spain and Italy combined – it still lags behind traditional high street spending, said Lloyds.

Britain’s biggest bank said that by value, 80% of its card spending is in store and 20% is online. It added that it was “no surprise” that Saturday remains the busiest day of the week for card usage in stores, with the tills ringing at peak volume between 11.30am and 4pm.

What may be more surprising is that Sunday is not actually the new Saturday. Volumes of transactions in retailers on a Sunday are high in the middle of the day but spending collapses after 3.30pm as stores are forced to shut. Friday stands out as the second most popular day for shoppers in store, with sales on a Friday afternoon significantly higher than any other afternoon of the week.

The Lloyds online shopping data ties in with figures from John Lewis, whose website is one of the biggest online retailers in the UK. It said that 8.30pm to 9.30pm on Sunday is the most popular time for placing orders, closely followed by 9to 10pm on a Monday.

It added that shoppers are now more likely to be using phones to go shopping than laptop or tablet computers, particularly during the morning rush hour. John Lewis said: “Mobile is the most popular device used to shop on johnlewis.com weekdays between 6am and 9am.” It added that orders placed via smartphones increased by 60% this year.

Online shoppers spend remarkably little time browsing web pages before spending. John Lewis said: “When shopping online, those who need things urgently typically take less than 6 minutes to make their purchase, whereas those who are looking for inspiration spend an average of 26 minutes browsing before purchasing.”